


Lullaby

by glitteringeva



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Mentions of past abuse, Modern AU, family au, lots of angst too, lots of fluff, surprise you have a child au, totally not going to sugarcoat anything about emerald/cinder, when will I ever stop, when will i ever run out of names for family aus, when will i ever stop writing family aus for these two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 49,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14058090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringeva/pseuds/glitteringeva
Summary: Mercury is probably the happiest he has ever been with his life, and madly in love with his girlfriend. Until one day a social worker shows up at his doorstep and tells him that Cinder has died, and that he has a five year old daughter to take care of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Me at it again. 
> 
> Big thanks to Adox for being an awesome beta and dealing with all my German commas.

“I’m just saying, the old bed was fine.” Mercury leaned against the wall and watched Yang arrange pillows she only used for decoration, wild patterns in bright colours and completely useless.

“It made too much noise. The neighbours complained.” Yang stood up and eyed the result of her efforts for a moment before she switched two of them around. It looked just the same. “Also, this one is bigger.”

“We could have fucked on the couch.”

“Sometimes I really wonder why I keep you around.” She rolled her eyes before she picked up her toolbox, and turned around to leave the room.

He didn’t care about her delicate pillow art when he dropped on the bed, spreading out and crossing his arms behind his head. It definitely was more comfortable than the old one, but he still wasn’t sure if it was also worth all the effort.

“What do you think?” Yang asked when she came back and sat down on the bed next to him. She had made him put her hair up into a ponytail halfway through the incredibly annoying process of building the bed, and he had done a bad job with it, both her hair and following her instructions. Some golden curls had already escaped, some were still struggling, the hair tie only loosely holding them together in her neck. It looked good on her.

“I already told you it’s alright when we went to buy it.” He ran his hand up and down her back. “This is an afternoon I will never get back.”

“You help me once and immediately complain.” She straddled his hip and he laid his hands on her thighs, but she stopped him from going any further, the metal of her prosthetic cold against his left hand but comfortably familiar.

“I just think you could reward me.”

“Yeah.” She leaned down to kiss him, this time not stopping his hands from roaming her body, but she pulled away way too soon. “But not right now. I have to go to work.”

“Call in sick.”

“I’m not going to call in sick to have sex with my boyfriend.” She pecked his cheek. “Later, okay? I promise.”

“You’re evil.”

“Stop pouting.”

“Nah, too much fun.”

“Jerk.”

They left her apartment together and she kissed him goodbye with one foot in the bus door until the bus driver snapped at her to either get in or out. It was warm for April and he took his jacket off when he walked home, the sun warm on his bare arms.

He only noticed the woman when he had already climbed up half the stairs to his apartment. She was standing in front of his door, ringing the doorbell with the annoyed glare of someone who had tried that before.

“No one’s home, huh?”

“I’m looking for Mercury Black,” she said. Her haircut was neat and boring, her blouse freshly ironed. “Have you seen him?”

“Depends on what you want.”

“Thank god. I’ve been trying to reach you for ages. I’m Amber Maple.”

The name rang a bell. “And I’m not interested in buying an insurance plan, nor in Jesus.”

“It’s not about – you know, why don’t we discuss that inside?”

He searched for his keys. “As I said, I’m not going to buy anything.”

“It’s not about anything like that. I’m a social worker.”

“You realise I’m twenty-six, right?” He unlocked his door.

“Please hear me out.”

He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t close the door behind him. “I don’t have much time.”

“It’s quite urgent.” She followed him inside.

“Just hurry.” He threw his keys on the small table with his phone, cramped with all the stuff he always pulled out of the pockets of his jacket just before he left the apartment. Amber Maple’s name was written all over the notepad in Yang’s tidy handwriting. She was the only one to ever check his voice messages.

She sat down on the couch in his living room. The place wasn’t as much of a mess as it could have been, but he wished he had bothered to do literally anything else with Yang’s drugstore haul than just throwing it on the coffee table. Tampons, condoms and toothpaste didn’t make for the most professional first impression. Just in case this was actually important, he still had his doubts.

“So what do you want?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

“I’m here because of your daughter.”

He chuckled. “You know, I don’t have the most common name, but you clearly have the wrong man. I don’t have a daughter.”

“I know this must come as a shock for you, but her mother named you as the father in the birth certificate. I will need a DNA sample from you to truly verify that, but you know Cinder Fall, don’t you?”

Oh.

 _Oh_ , fuck.

“Last time I’ve seen her is about six years ago. If this is true, which it isn’t, why is coming for me now? For money?”

“She’s dead.”

Oh.

“I’m not here for money”, she said. “There is a small fortune that Ms Fall has inherited from her late father, so that is not the issue. It’s in a trust fund that her daughter will have access to when she turns eighteen. But Ms Fall didn’t have any relatives.”

“You want me to take care of her, don’t you?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“No.” He crossed his arms in front of this chest. “No way. I have a job. I have a girlfriend. I don’t have time for a child, and neither do I know how to take care of one. If you knew more about me you wouldn’t even give me a goldfish. My girlfriend doesn’t even let me take care of her plants.”

“Listen, it’s not like I like to let children live with people who are basically strangers to them. And I know your file. But the alternative is foster care, or adoption. No one adopts a traumatised five year old girl. They either have completely unrealistic expectations of what it’s like to adopt an older child or they know what they’re in for and only want cute babies. Foster care is a nightmare because we have so many children I can’t be picky anymore with where I put them. This place can’t be any worse than where she’s now.”

“You can’t just walk in here and drop a child on my doorstep. I don’t even know anything about children.”

“It wouldn’t be like that. First we have to make sure you’re actually her biological father, then you’d get to know her and only after that we will have to make a decision. I will be there the whole way and even after that.”

“This is ridiculous.” He shook his head. But even he knew the problem wouldn’t just go away if he threw her out. “I want that DNA test.”

“Sure. I can take your sample right now.” She opened her bag and searched for a bit before she found a plastic bag. “I have pictures of her if you want.”

“No. Just the test.”

“I’ll leave them here, just in case.”

She left the envelope with the pictures on the coffee table. It stayed there when she was already gone. He didn’t dare to touch it as if that would make the whole thing real, and all the problems it came with. Yang. Emerald.

Emerald. _Fuck._

Maybe she wasn’t even his. It wouldn’t be beyond Cinder to lie and just use his name for whatever reason even though he wasn’t the real father. He had only slept with her a couple of times and he hadn’t been the only one.

He turned the TV on and the volume up until he couldn’t hear himself think anymore.

 

* * *

  


“No – damn.”

He sat straight up, feeling like someone had literally ripped him out of his sleep. “Yang?”

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up.” Yang was holding a can of coke in her hand, a few others on the floor around her feet, one still rolling until it hit the wall. Probably the sound that had woken him up. The TV was still on, but the volume was turned down until almost inaudible. Yang was already wearing her pyjama pants. How long had she been here? What was she even doing here?

“What time is it?” He ran his hands through his hair.

“Half past six. We should order pizza soon, but I wanted to wait until you woke up.” She kneeled down to pick up the cans.

Oh yeah. Movie night. He had completely forgotten about that. “You don’t have to tidy up my living room.”

“No one else does it. You can make up for it later.”

He got up and picked up a can she had forgotten before he followed her into the kitchen. She had brought snacks and drinks, enough to feed an army. If he had learned anything while being with Yang Xiao Long it was that she took movie nights very seriously.

“Barbecue chicken and bacon. Extra cheese.”

“What’s wrong with you?” She smirked anyway. “I’ll go order the pizza, put the drinks into the fridge.”

Fitting the drinks into the fridge was a bit like playing Tetris. Coke for him, beer and Fanta for her. When he came back to the living room she was grabbing the drugstore bag from the coffee table. “What’s that?” she asked taking the brown envelope that had lain next to it. He felt his stomach drop. _No, not like that_. “I’ll put it on the stack with your other tax stuff, just don’t forget where it is again, okay? All paperwork is usually on the tax stack.”

He took a deep breath and sat down on the sofa. Maybe this was the right moment to tell her. Would she be mad? Did she have any right to be mad? After all it wasn’t like he had cheated on her, he had met her almost a year after he had seen Cinder for the last time. But he didn’t know if there was even a reason to tell her in the first place. Maybe it would be better to wait until he had heard back from Amber Maple. He decided to stop thinking about it for now, even if he had to force himself. 

“Are you still tired?” Yang sat down next to him, running her hand through his hair for a moment. “You look awful.”

“Just had a really bad nap.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair and closing his eyes. He had never been fond of this whole relationship thing until a while after he had met her, but something about her was oddly comforting. He had decided not to try to understand or question it long ago.

“Do you want to pick the movie?” He felt her lips on his temple, her thumb brushing over his jaw.

“No, it’s your turn.” He looked up.

“Okay, but don’t think I’ll go easy on you.” She chuckled and turned her head to kiss him on the lips. “Have you ever seen the extended cut of The Lord of the Rings?”


	2. Chapter 2

Sundays were for family. At least in Yang’s world. However, Mercury had never gotten used to this tradition. It had taken him long enough to understand how important it was to her, even longer to stop seeing it as a trade-off, something he did for her and her only in exchange for something she did for him. But as much as he enjoyed them now, they were still her Sundays.

“You’re so bad at this it’s not even fun anymore,” Ruby said after he died. Again. “Are you even trying?”

“I would if you hadn’t made me play Zenyatta.”

“We need a healer and I refuse to play with you if you pick Mei again,” Yang said.

“I’m an amazing Mei.” He smirked, while Yang looked like she was about to throw her laptop at him.

“Guys, stop fighting and help me with that Pharah, okay?” Ruby rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you try Lucio, Merc?”

“Why don’t you play a healer?”

“Mercury!” Yang slammed down her metallic fist on the table hard enough to make the wood groan in protest. “Did you really just change to Mei?”

“Yes, I did. And you just died.”

“Right now I really wish this game had friendly fire.”

“Mei is just as much of a hero as all the others, why –“

“Because you’re a terrible Mei,” Ruby said. “All you do is building walls where they don’t belong.”

“Just be glad I can’t freeze you.”

Yang got up and shoved herself between him and his laptop, sitting down on his lap and kissing him before he could protest. Not that he would.

“Great, and now we’ve lost.” Ruby groaned. “Why do I keep playing with you two?”

“I am asking myself the same question right now,” Yang mumbled against his lips. He smirked and reached up to kiss her again.

“Because I’m hot,” he said.

“You guys are gross,” Emerald said. She lay on the couch, her head resting on Blake’s stomach, going through pictures of wedding dresses on her tablet.

“No one asked for your lesbian opinion, Em.” Yang rolled her eyes, but laughed.

“I’m so glad I didn’t bring my laptop,” Blake said. She closed her book, running her hand through Emerald’s hair. “Mercury always makes the game way more stressful than it has to be.”

“Talk to me again when you stop yelling at Weiss whenever you two play together.” Mercury wrapped his arms around Yang.

Yang leaned down to peck his lips. “They just have very different opinions about how you should play this game.”

“Kids, dinner is ready.” Taiyang had stopped giving Mercury angry glares long ago, but he still avoided to look at him and Yang. Mercury pulled her closer just for good measure. “Put your laptops away.”

“Finally, I’m starving.” Yang kissed his cheek and got up. “Can you put the laptops on the coffee table, Merc? I’ll go get us drinks.”

“Sure.” He was tempted to pat her butt as she walked past him, but he didn’t need to bring her dad’s fury into one of Yang’s holy Sundays. Instead he took the laptops to the coffee table as she had told him to and pinched Emerald’s rips.

“Asshole,” she said, before sitting up.

“You’re such a sweetheart.”

“Hey, don’t insult my fiancé.” Blake smirked and got up. “Come help with the plates.”

“I’ll be right there.” He took Emerald’s tablet and scrolled through the pictures she had been looking at. She let out a protesting grunt, but it didn’t actually bother her. If it had she wouldn’t have let him. “They all look the same to me.”

“This is exactly the reason why I’m not asking you for help.”

He sat down next to her. “Okay, this one looks a bit worse than the others.”

“It’s just for inspiration. I’m not going to order anything online. By the way, you’re going to wear a suit.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You absolutely are.” She took the tablet away from him again. “You’re the best man and I won’t let you come in jeans. A suit or a bridesmaid dress, make a choice.”

“Only if you wear one too.”

“I’ll wear one for your wedding”, she said, knowing full well he would never have one. He flipped her off and got up.

Mercury had grown to like Yang’s Sundays. It hadn’t always been like that. There had been times when all this had made him angry. But this wasn’t about showing him what he had never had, this was Yang’s attempt to share her life with him, all the good parts. The thing that was more precious to her than anything else.

 

* * *

 

“I’m not saying you’re a bad Mei,” Yang said. “You know how to play her. I’m just saying you are an annoying jerk who has the skill to help his team and instead just trolls them.”

“Says the Reinhardt who always leaves the control point.” They walked down the street to her apartment, fingers loosely intertwined. She was wearing his jacket, he was almost cold in his thin sweater.

“I’m just not meant to be a defensive hero.”

“Then why do you keep playing him?”

“He’s big and I like hitting people with the hammer.”

“You die all the time when you play tanks. Throwing yourself right in the middle of the other team, causing some damage, letting them kill you. It’s painful to watch.”

“I die like a hero.”

“Mhm.” He stopped in front of his front door and searched for his keys.

“Hey. Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t mhm me.” She poked his ribs.

He opened the door and leaned down to kiss her. “You die and you lose like a hero.”

“You can be such a pain in the ass.” She pulled him upstairs, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. “Come on. Maybe I’m into bad boys tonight.”

 

* * *

 

“Merc.”

He pulled the blanket over his head, trying to cuddle up closer to the warm body next to him, but she pushed him away. He groaned.

“Mercury, someone’s at the door.” Yang sounded sleepy, but she was still strong enough to pull the blanket away from him, even with one arm. “Your apartment, so you have to get up.”

“You’re evil.” He sat up. It was almost ten in the morning, but yesterday they had both stayed up late and it was their day off. He didn’t bother to put on a shirt, but he had been wearing long pyjama pants and socks anyway because Yang sometimes woke up from the sound of his prosthetics hitting against each other when he turned around in his sleep. “I’ll make coffee.”

Amber Maple looked just as neat as tidy as last time he had seen her. He blinked at her, not sure if he had better closed the door again immediately. “No, not now.”

“Listen, this is –“

“Urgent? Again? _Listen_ , my girlfriend is here, I don’t have time for this now.”

“I have the test results.”

He lowered his voice. “Do you have good news for me?”

“That clearly depends on what you expect. But we need to talk about the next steps to take and the decisions that we have to make now.”

“Shit.” He leaned against the doorframe, running his hand through his hair.

“Who is it?”

He flinched and turned around. “No one.”

“Well, that’s certainly someone.” She was wearing his shirt and her own pyjama shorts, running her fingers up and down his spine when she looked at Amber. “That church again?”

If there was anything good to say about Amber it was that she didn’t say anything. She looked at him and waited for him to explain things, to give him the opportunity to come up with an excuse. But there was probably a point where he couldn’t make any excuses anymore.

“It’s… it’s complicated.” He sighed. “There’s probably something I should explain to you.”

He had expected her to leave. To yell at him. To tell him they were done. But she made coffee instead while he went to at least put on a shirt, and then calmly listened to what Amber had to say while using her only hand to stir way too much sugar into her cup of coffee without drinking it. Mercury didn’t dare to sit down next to Amber and Yang so he stood, leaning against the wall.

“It would be good if she could move into a permanent home before school starts later this year. She’ll turn six in July and we’re not sure yet if it would be better for her to spend another year in kindergarten first. She hasn’t really been much around children her age before.”

“So what’s the next step?” Yang asked.

Amber looked at Mercury, sipping on her coffee. “You have to make a decision whether or not you want to be involved at all or not. She’s a young girl who has just lost her mother. We can’t just introduce her to her dad only for him to disappear out of her life again shortly afterwards. She needs stability.”

Yang finally laid down her spoon, took a sip of her coffee and grimaced, put it down again. “How much time do we have to make that decision?”

“We should probably talk again in a week.”

A week didn’t seem long enough to forget this was happening. “Sure,” Yang said. “I’ll make sure he thinks about it. What’s her name?”

“Effie. Effie Fall. She’s a smart girl, won’t take ‘you’re too young to understand that’ as an answer. I think you’d love her if you met her. Call me if you have any questions. You have my card.” Amber got up. “And thanks for the coffee.”

Yang followed her to the door. Mercury heard them chat, then the door closed. Yang didn’t look at him when she came back, sitting back down on the couch and pouring more sugar into her coffee before she realised there was too much in it already. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to wait until I knew for sure. It’s not like I plan to take her in anyway, so –“

“What do you mean?” Her voice was sharp, angry.

“Come on, this is a horrible idea. I killed your cactus, do you really think I could properly take care of a traumatised child? Do you think I’d be any good for her?”

“You don’t even care, do you?” The bitterness in her voice made something ache deep inside of him.

“I don’t even know her, Yang. I didn’t even know she existed until a few days ago.”

“Did you even ask for her name?” she asked, almost yelling.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, avoiding to look at her. “No.”

“I really thought you weren’t that much of a cunt.” She got up, slamming the bedroom door behind her. He hesitated for a moment before he followed her. She was pulling clothes out of his closet with one arm, throwing them on the bed. Her clothes.

“Yang, calm down.”

“I’m not calming down! I’m not just going to watch you sit there and live your comfortable life while your daughter doesn’t know why her father left her and never came back. I’m not going to wait ten years until she finds you just so you can disappoint her by telling her you just never bothered to talk to her, you just didn’t care enough to make an effort and make her life a tiny bit less shitty.”

“Yang, this isn’t about Raven.”

She stopped her movements for a moment and stared at the shirt in her hand as if it had any answers for her, her lip twitching. “Your mum is just a cunt, but Summer died when I was her age and she doesn’t even have a family to be there for her. You don’t know what it’s like.”

She didn’t protest when he wrapped his arms around her, just sunk against him. He knew she hated it to cry, he knew she was fighting the tears as hard as she could, and knowing her so well made the thought of losing her over this stupid thing so scary. He rested his chin on the top of her head, stroking her back until she calmed down enough to pull away from him.

“I can’t believe she didn’t even tell you her name the first time I was here,” Yang mumbled.

“She gave me pictures. Brown envelope, I don’t know where I put it.”

“Tax stack, Merc. It’s always the tax stack.”

He ran his hands over her arms in comfort. “You can open it if you want.”

She spread the pictures on the coffee table while he made her tea. He didn’t look at them before he sat down next to her and she took the cup out of his hands.

It was weird to see Cinder again after all these years. She was wearing her hair shorter than he remembered, wrapping one arm around a little girl with a dark ponytail who grinned into the camera. They were at a beach somewhere, maybe a vacation, maybe close to where they had lived. The other two pictures only showed the girl, one of her digging her spoon into a large cup of ice cream and another one from the beach. She almost looked exactly like her mother, but other than Cinder she had dark eyes.

“It’s short for Phoebe.” Yang turned one of the pictures around. Someone had written _Phoebe Fall_ on it with red ink.

“I knew Effie doesn’t sound like a name Cinder would pick.” He sighed. “Please don’t tell Blake about this, okay? I need to tell Em myself.”

“Did she know Cinder?”

“Sort of.” That put it lightly.

“How long have you been with her?”

“We haven’t really been together, it was… more complicated. More like someone you hang out with to later find out it was a really shitty idea. I only slept with her a couple of times.”

“Please don’t be like my mum, Merc.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“You’ve heard what she said. Even someone who knew what a decent parent is supposed to look like would struggle to handle a situation like that. The Cinder that I knew probably did a good job at screwing her up.”

“But you wouldn’t have to do this alone.”

He looked up. Her gaze was locked on the pictures in front of her. “You mean if I decide to take her in…”

“I won’t leave you because of that. It’s definitely not how I expected this relationship to develop, but… it’s just not fair if she had to live as an orphan even though she isn’t one.”

“I rather would have been an orphan than living with my dad.”

“You’re not him.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You could never be like that, even if you tried.”

It was hard to believe her, even if he really wanted to. “You know, I should have known she’d screw up my life even more than she already did.”

“Maybe it won’t be that bad.”

He wanted to believe her.


	3. Chapter 3

“Why do you want a winter wedding anyway?” Mercury crossed his arms in front of his chest. “This looks like they chased the cows outside five minutes ago.”

“Because no one wants to get married in winter,” Emerald said. “Makes the whole thing a lot more affordable. Also no one asked for your opinion, asshole.” She smirked anyway and he reciprocated it. There was always something between them that no one else understood. Yang always told him it was like that with all siblings and he would shrug it off.

The barn like exactly that, a barn. Even though Yang did understand the country house flair Blake and Emerald wanted, it most of all promised to be a lot of work. Weiss seemed to think that too by the way she looked around. “Do you think it will be warm enough in here?” Yang asked.

“They promised it will.” Blake inspected one of the window shelves, covered in dust and glitter. Probably from a previous wedding. “It’s a winter wedding after all, people can wear cardigans and blazers. But the barn has heating.”

“We could use the roof beams to hang lanterns from the ceiling,” Weiss said. “With proper decoration it can probably work.”

“I like it,” Blake said. “It’s charming and exactly what we originally wanted. Also there’s lots of space and not much that can break. If Jaune and Pyrrha bring the triplets we’ll be glad there is no carpet to get stained.”

“Why do people even get married when it’s that stressful?” Mercury wrapped his arm around Yang’s shoulders, his weight leaning on her. “Holy shit, if you ever want something like that just do it without me.”

“Do you just want me to marry some other guy?” She smirked at him.

“If you insist. I’ll send that poor man a condolence card.”

“Why is your boyfriend so unromantic?” Weiss looked annoyed, pulling out her phone to take pictures of the barn. “What if Yang would like to get married?”

“I like weddings as long as they’re not my own.” She had thought about it more than once. Not that she would have minded getting married, but she also didn’t feel any need to. The whole ordeal seemed stressful enough already and right now she was only Blake’s maid of honour.  With Mercury she had straight up went from not feeling secure enough in their relationship to get married to feeling too secure to feel like there would be any point in it. A ring on her finger wouldn’t change anything about how they felt for each other, the trust between them.

Not even a child would change that.

And there was that thought again. She pretended it didn’t bother her, but she had never been too good at lying to herself. She loved Mercury too much to let this break them up, and neither of them wanted to end things because of this. But she would have been foolish to think this wouldn’t be a challenge.

“Do you hate it?” Mercury whispered.

She snapped out of her thoughts and looked up. “The barn? No. Just thinking about whether to go for doilies or tablecloths.”

“None of those.” His lips briefly brushed her cheek. This was as all the affection she would get in public and she gladly took it. “I’m so glad Em forbid me to go dress shopping with her.”

“I’ll get to go dress shopping with both Emerald and Blake and it will be the best thing ever. I’ll bring a bottle of champagne and we’ll have so much fun without you.” She watched the others discuss something regarding ceiling in a corner, Emerald’s hand loosely intertwined with Blake’s. “You know, if this was my wedding, I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much. But they are so happy and that makes me happy too.”

“Em needs this.” His voice was barely a whisper. “She needs stability. That whole domestic marriage thing is good for her, just like how Ruby and your father have basically adopted her. You know, that’s the only reason I’m putting up with all this bullshit. Who the hell needs to spend an entire day putting your relationship out into the public like that?”

“It means something to them. Blake has always wanted to get married. Maybe it’s because her parents are so happy with each other. I know dad was happy with Summer, but my mum tried that whole domestic marriage and family thing and ran away, so it always had a bitter taste for me.”

“I’m pretty sure my mother would have married someone if anyone had been stupid enough to take her. But even my dad wasn’t.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist. “And you were smart enough to make me fall in love with you so we can not get married together.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “Come on, let’s make them pick this location already and go have coffee somewhere.”

He gave her one of his honest smiles, the ones only reserved for the rare occasions when he was showing how much she meant to him. It had a warmth to it that spread through her entire body. “Let’s stop them before they decide I have to wear a dress too or something.”

“I won’t let them, purple is not your colour.”

Maybe they could make this work after all, no matter how many surprise children appeared.


	4. Chapter 4

Mercury couldn’t remember his apartment ever being this clean. Yang had thrown herself into turning everything upside down to clean it, probably to avoid thinking about the talk they would have today. The talk about the ‘next step’. Mercury had happily partook in that distraction, mostly because she made him, but also just to keep himself from letting the reality of the situation sink in too much.

The downside was that now there wasn’t really anything left to do.

“It’s your birthday.” She closed her eyes as he ran his fingers through her hair. Her head rested on his lap. She had complained earlier about him resting his feet on the coffee table, before he told her he didn’t even really have feet anymore. “We can just tell everyone we’re doing something private and then spend the evening at home, maybe order pizza or something. But they’re not just going to forget about it, Ruby is definitely getting you a present.”

“Pizza, movies, sex. Not necessarily in that order. Only the two of us.”

“And I just thought you were offering me a threesome.”

“I mean if Blake ever makes an offer, I wouldn’t –“

“Shut up.” She laughed and pinched his rips. “She’s gonna marry Em.”

“I think it would be weird if it was Em, she’s like a sister to me.”

She sat up to give him a long kiss. “You’re only making it worse and I hate it.”

“No, you love it.” He wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer. “And I –“

The doorbell rang and they both froze. All of a sudden reality had them back. “Guess that’s her,” Yang said, voice serious all of a sudden.

He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment. “I’ll open the door.”

“I’ll go make coffee.” She kissed his cheek before she got up and he followed her to open the door.

He didn’t notice her immediately. For some reason he noticed the suitcase first, red with white dots on it, way too cute to be Amber’s. Only then did he finally see the girl

Effie looked older than she had in the pictures, and she wasn’t smiling. She was giving him the same look Cinder had always had when something hadn’t went according to her plan and seriously pissed her off. Yeah, definitely her daughter.

“Good afternoon,” Amber said with the smile of someone who knew that absolutely nothing was alright. “Sweetie, why don’t you go into the living room and look at one of your books?”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“Come on, I’ll show you the way.” She gently pushed Effie into the apartment. She gave Mercury an apologetic look. “I’ll be right with you in the kitchen and help you with the coffee.”

Yang was in the kitchen, preparing a tray with coffee and all the unnecessary effort she put into things when she was nervous. He leaned against the fridge. “She brought the girl,” he whispered.

Yang looked up. “What? I thought we were just going to –“

“Yeah. Me too.” He ran his hands through his hair. “This was not how… I thought we had at least some time to prepare.”

Amber stepped into the kitchen and looked absolutely done. She sat down at the kitchen table, buried her face in her hands and let out a long groan. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice?” Mercury asked. “This wasn’t planned.”

“I had her in foster care.” Amber looked up. “But her foster parents got arrested yesterday. Neighbour wanted to borrow some ice cream without asking and found the husband’s dead mother in the freezer. I have three children sleeping in my living room at the moment, and I have already used all my connections to find a place to stay for the other two. I ran out of options.”

“She stayed in foster care with five other children and a corpse in the freezer?” Yang shook her head for a moment. “I didn’t know the system was that bad.”

“There is a reason I’m willing to let her stay with someone she doesn’t even know.”

“Of course she can stay here.”

“Yang…” Mercury sighed. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You can’t just send her away when she has nowhere else to stay.” Yang crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You can sleep at my place if it’s –“

“Okay but where is she supposed to sleep?” Mercury asked.

“Your office.”

“It’s more a storage room than anything else.”

“Yeah, but my old sofa is still buried under all your junk in there. It’ll work until we can find a more permanent solution and clear it all up. Your work desk fits into the living room if we move the furniture around a bit and there’s still some space in my dad’s garage.”

“Why don’t we go and let you meet her first?” Amber said. “She’s probably nervous.”

Mercury was nervous too, and he didn’t like it. Suddenly there was this girl who depended on him and had expectations he couldn’t possibly live up to. It would have been so much easier if it had been Yang’s child. She knew how to take care of someone. She’d be a great mum.

Effie’s feet were dangling over the edge of the sofa. She was wearing black tights, a white dress and a pink cardigan. It looked like someone had dressed her up to go to a wedding, and by the way she pulled at the hem of her dress she wasn’t used to wear that sort of clothes. She eyed him suspiciously and he busied himself with getting two chairs from the dining table for Yang and him.

“This is Mercury,” Amber said. “He’s your dad.”

“You said you’d go to the kitchen and get coffee.” Effie stared down at her feet again. “You didn’t bring any coffee.”

“Oh, I forgot.” Yang got up again. “Do you want a hot chocolate?” Effie nodded, looking down until Yang turned around to leave, then followed her with her gaze.

“Do you have any questions?” Amber asked, not further specifying who she meant. Mercury had a lot of questions, but not any Effie could answer. He shook his head.

“Who’s she?” Effie asked, looking at Amber.

“I think she’s Mercury’s girlfriend, right?”

“Yeah.” They hadn’t talked about how to introduce Yang to her yet, that had been three steps ahead of what was originally supposed to happen today.

“Why does she only have one arm?”

Amber bit her lip. “Maybe you shouldn’t ask –“

“She’s okay talking about it,” Mercury said. “It was a motorcycle accident.”

Yang came back carrying a tray with four cups. “Here we go. I forgot how you drink your coffee, but I brought milk and sugar.” She gave Effie a cup and Mercury could have sworn he didn’t have cocoa powder, but apparently Yang had found some.

“Be careful with your dress,” Amber said.

“It’s a dress, you can wash it.” Mercury poured sugar into his own cup.

“So… I still have to take care of some other things today,” Amber said. “I think I packed everything she needs and I will check in with you again tomorrow, how about I let you settle in for now?”

“Sure” Mercury said. He wanted to say that this was a terrible idea. A very terrible idea. “I’ll take you to the door.” He got up. When they left the living room Amber closed the door behind her.

“She’s a nice girl,” Amber whispered when he opened the front door for her. “She will probably just need some time to warm up to you.”

“This is a bad idea.” He sighed. “How did she die by the way?”

“Who?”

“Cinder.”

“Oh.” Amber lowered her voice. “We didn’t tell her all about it, but… she was visiting a friend apparently, and while she was the house burned down. Effie wasn’t with her. Sad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. A real tragedy.”

When he closed the door behind her he felt like following her and never coming back. But Yang was here. He took a deep breath and then grabbed his keys. “I just realised we don’t have anything for dinner,” he said when he went back to the living room, leaning against the doorframe. “I’ll go to the supermarket real quick.”

Yang rolled her eyes at him. “How about lasagne? Do you like that, Effie?”

Effie shrugged, then nodded. 

“Don’t forget the cheese again,” Yang said. “We still have enough tomatoes, but you need to buy everything else.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.” He turned around and he knew he had to make up for leaving her alone with Effie somehow. If he had been that cheesy he would have bought her flowers.

 

* * *

 

Of course Mercury used the first excuse to run away. The worst part was that she knew him too well by now to really be mad at him, even though she wanted to.

She sighed and looked at Effie. The girl was still sitting on the couch, sipping on her hot chocolate while her gaze rested on Yang. Sceptically. Defiant. Yang wasn’t sure if she just didn’t like her or if she had actually done something wrong. Maybe she was jealous? Influenced by the trope of the evil stepmom from various fairy tales? Scared because she couldn’t quite grasp the situation?

“To be honest, we weren’t prepared for you to stay here tonight, so let’s go and prepare your room,” Yang said eventually, because she had to say something. She got up and took Effie’s suitcase. She almost expected Effie to protest, but then she put her cup down and got up.

Mercury didn’t use his office often, usually just took his laptop to the couch. Luckily, Mercury wasn’t the type to hoard much unnecessary stuff, keeping most junk for the sole reason of being too lazy to throw it away. Yang had never seen him being attached to anything but his laptop and his comics. There was a big bookshelf where Mercury kept the things he didn’t need often, his desk with all the paperwork he’d never bothered to sort out, and her old sofa. Yang lifted a box with comic books from the couch and shoved it underneath the desk. 

“It’s not as uncomfortable as it looks,” Yang said. “My sister always slept on it when she stayed over at my place. The room looks like a mess now, but we’ll make it more homely in time.” She opened the drawers of Mercury’s desk and put the few pens and paperclips she found in there into a box with gloves and hats for the winter to make space. “How about we unpack your things, huh?”

“My clothes are dirty,” Effie said. “They didn’t wash them before I had to leave. Amber brought me new clothes this morning. I hate pink. I hate dresses.”

“Then I’ll better throw them into the washing machine right now, they’ll be clean and dry when it’s time to go to bed.”

Effie nodded and opened her suitcase carefully. It was full of clothes, none of them folded, a single fox plushie sitting on top.

“I guess he doesn’t need to be washed,” Yang said, taking the fox plushie and carefully sitting him down on the sofa. “You also got a toothbrush, right?”

“Yes.” Effie pulled a red washbag out of the suitcase. “The rest are just clothes.”

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” She must have had more toys when she still lived with Cinder.

“Still at home. Amber said I can go and get them when I’ve moved, but she promised not to throw any of it away. She really did promise it.”

“We can fit all your stuff somewhere, I promise. I’ll go and wash the rest of the clothes and then we’ll put fresh sheets on the sofa.” Yang closed the suitcase again and picked it up.

She didn’t have many clothes with her, so Yang could fit it all into one machine. She got up to put the washing argent into the machine when Effie came running into the kitchen. “Wait!” she yelled, starting to pull clothes out of the machine and throwing them on the floor until she was holding a black sweater in her hands. She pressed it to her face. It took Yang a moment to notice it was too big to be hers.

“Is that your mum’s?” Yang asked.

Effie nodded, her fingers digging into the dark fabric. “I hid it. Amber told me to only get the clothes I need. I won’t give it away.”

“Okay, then we don’t need to wash that one.” Yang kneeled down to put the rest of her clothes back into the machine.

“I don’t want to wear this dress anymore.” Her voice was sharp and determined.

“If you want to you can wear some of my clothes until yours are dry. I’m sure some of the sweaters I have here are long enough for you to wear as a dress. I mean you said you don’t like dresses, but it would be more comfortable than what you’re wearing now.”

Effie looked down, then nodded slowly. “If it’s a sweater it’s technically not a dress.”

It was a bitter thought, but Yang almost liked her better when she was angry. Right now she only looked sad. “Okay, come on. I’ll get you something to wear, then we can throw the dress right into the machine with the rest.”

“You can wash it, but I won’t wear it anymore.”

“The cardigan isn’t too bad if we dye it. We’ll give the dress back to Amber, maybe she can give it to someone else.”

Yang’s yellow sweater looked like a tent on Effie. She helped her pull up the sleeves and all of a sudden Effie threw herself into her arms, her small arms tightly wrapped around her neck. Yang froze for a moment before she hugged her tightly. She almost expected her to cry, but she didn’t, just leaned against her, her face buried in Yang’s sweater.

“Am I going to stay here now?” Effie whispered, as if anyone else was here to hear her.

“You know, it’s complicated, but… we’re not just going to send you back into foster care, okay? I promise that you will end up staying in a nice home that will always be a home for you no matter what.”

“Amber said the same thing.” She still sounded defiant, but Yang realised it wasn’t against her. She didn’t know who she was angry at exactly, she wasn’t sure if Effie knew it herself, but if it wasn’t her she could offer comfort.

“Yeah, but I don’t get paid to take care of you, so I have no reason to lie to you.” She stroked her back. “It’s going to be alright. Are you hungry? I can make you another hot chocolate, my dad always used to make them for me. I’ve learned it from the best.” She just wanted her to stop being sad. The worst part was that she knew it took time, years even, and no hot chocolate would make it any better. But it still made her feel like she was doing something.

 

* * *

 

When Mercury came home, Effie was sitting on the couch watching TV. Yang joined him in the kitchen when he unpacked his grocery bag, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She always did that when she wanted to talk about something but actually didn’t.

“Sorry for leaving you alone with her.” He turned around and stepped closer to peck her lips.

“At least you came back.” She sighed. “We need to talk about this whole situation later tonight, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, and now go and talk to your daughter.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll take care of the kitchen.”

“Sure.” He didn’t want to. But he knew he had to eventually.

Effie looked up when he opened the living room door. She was wearing one of Yang’s sweaters, the yellow one he liked on her because it was so soft. He sat down next to her on the sofa, leaning back. “What are you watching?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never watched the show before.”

“Did Yang show you your room?”

“Yes. She put sheets on the sofa.”

“Yeah, the sofa is… we’ll work out something more permanent soon.”

“I want to go home.” She fumbled around with the sleeves of her sweater.

“I know, but –“

“I know I can’t live there anymore, Amber explained that to me. But all my things are still there and maybe she will throw it away, even though she promised not to.”

“I will ask her about that, okay? I don’t know what we’re going to do with it, but maybe Yang’s dad can store a few things in his garage, or we’ll rent storage room, we’ll figure something out.”

“So if you’re my dad,” she said, straightforward as Cinder had sometimes been, “then why have I never met you?”

He looked away. “I didn’t know about you existed. Your mum moved away before you were born.”

“Did you love my mummy?”

Well, there was no point in lying to her about that. “No.”

“Do you love Yang.”

He stared at the TV. “Yeah.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

There you go. “We’re both not the type for that.”

“If you got married she could become my stepmom.”

Straightforward. “She could still… she doesn’t need to marry me for that. It’s not like I’m going to marry someone else anytime soon. You know, maybe you should talk to her about that.”

“I want my real mum back.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “But I don’t want Yang to go away, she’s nice.”

“She’s not going anywhere. She has endured me for years after all.”

“Promised?”

“Yes.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you need anything else?” Yang tucked Effie into the sheets. “We’ll leave the lights on in the hallway. Wake us up if you need anything.”

Effie pressed her fox plushie to her chest tightly. “Good night,” she whispered.

“As I said, we’re right there in the bedroom.” Yang stroked some hair out of her forehead before she got up. “Good night.”

She wasn’t sure how to feel when she closed the door behind her. The apartment felt different, even with Effie sleeping in the office. Mercury was sitting on the couch, cautiously looking at her when she sat down next to him.

“Do you want to stay up?” she asked.

“No.” He looked back at the TV. “Is she asleep?”

“Well, I hope she is.” She got up. “I need a shower.”

Mercury was already in bed when she closed the bedroom door behind her. She left her prosthetic on the bedside table and crawled under the blanket and for a moment she thought he was already asleep, but then he turned around and wrapped his arms around her.

“I talked to her,” she whispered. “We can’t just send her back.”

He sighed, nestling his face into the crook of her neck. “I know, I just… I just need time. I can’t just jump into this whole dad role all of a sudden.”

“I know.” She ran her hand through his hair. It was hard not to be angry at him for it, for leaving her with the role of a stepmom instead before she could even think about whether or not she wanted that. But it was also hard to really be mad at him, knowing his whole life story. “And I will help you. Just… whatever we decide to do, we need to make sure she has a home. Not just a place to stay, a home where she knows she will always feel welcome.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure.”

“Do you really mean it or do you just want this talk to be over?”

“Yang, when I was her age I already didn’t even have a childhood anymore. I don’t know how to take care of a child and do this whole dad thing.”

“She reminds me of myself.”

He sighed and pulled her closer, his lips brushing her skin. “I’m not going to be as much of a bitch as your mother, okay?”

“I don’t want to pressure you into this whole thing only because of my issues.”

He pulled himself up to kiss her, soft and gentle. “Maybe I sometimes need you to do that.”

She took a deep breath. Sometimes she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t gotten herself an easier boyfriend, but then again he reminded her she didn’t want anyone else. “I’ll call in sick from work this week. I hate this job anyway, but she needs someone to look after her. Maybe I can ask dad to help, he loves children.”

“Fuck,” he groaned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need to tell Em before we tell anyone else, okay? Anyone. Not even Blake.”

“It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask her to keep that from her girlfriend.” She sighed. “What is it with Emerald and Cinder?”

“It’s complicated.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “She doesn’t exactly know I’ve slept with her.”

“Was she her girlfriend? Did Cinder cheat on her with you?”

“No, not really. They had something going on, but I didn’t know the whole extend that until Cinder had long disappeared out of our life.”

“Okay.” She laid her hand on his cheek, her lips warm against his. “But you should tell her soon. It will be hard to keep this a secret and I think having a big family would be good for her.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Okay.” She rested her head on his chest. “Good night.”

“Good night.”


	5. Chapter 5

Yang was a cuddler. No matter how big the bed was, she always spread out and ended up practically smothering him, clinging to his back if she had to (she called it being the big spoon, he called it her playing his one armed backpack). He had grown used to it. Waking up with her warm body pressed against his was endearing, limbs entangled and her hair in his face. Her hair was always in his face.

When he woke up that morning, at first he thought he was alone. He groaned and turned around, only to have his face full of hair. He shoved it away and moved closer to wrap his arms around Yang, but before he could, he noticed she wasn’t alone.

He sat up. Yang was hugging Effie with her arm, holding her close while Effie hugged her fox plushie, sleeping peacefully. He sighed and got up.

They didn’t get up when he showered, but he heard them talk when he was in the kitchen and made coffee. He poured sugar into her cup and milk into his before he sat down in the living room and waited. Yang was still wearing her pyjama when she sat down next to him, grabbing her cup and resting her head against his shoulder.

“When did she wake up?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. In the middle of the night, she woke me up because she had a nightmare. I think she just didn’t like to sleep alone, it’s a new place after all. We need to get her room ready so she feels safe and more comfortable.”

“So she’ll get the office?”

“It’s not even a real office. I mean do you have a better idea?”

“Well, your apartment is bigger. You barely use the guest room.”

“Yeah, but she’s your daughter, they’re not going to let her live with me instead of you.”

“Your new bed is big enough for both of us anyway.”

She looked up. “Did you just ask me if I want to move in with you?”

He shrugged. “I just said your guest room is bigger.”

“I can’t believe you need to get a daughter to ask things like that.” She sipped on her coffee. “You know, it makes sense, we’re hopping between our apartments all the time anyway.”

He shrugged. He had always liked having his own place, but over the time he had grown to miss Yang when she wasn’t around. “It would save money, too. Also you get along with her better anyway, she likes you.”

“It hasn’t even been a day, give it some time.” She kissed his cheek. “You should go check on her, she wanted to get dressed, but we should have breakfast soon.”

“If you want me to.” He took his coffee and got up. “Do we still have eggs?”

“Yeah. Fried eggs?”

“Sounds good to me.”

The door to her room was open. She had pulled the box with his older comics out and was sitting on the floor, reading through one of them. She was wearing black leggings and a purple sweater, the hood had cat ears and was pulled over her head so he couldn’t see her face.

“Which one are you reading?”

She looked up, then showed him the cover. “I can’t read yet, I’m just looking at the pictures.”

“I guess that one isn’t much fun when you can’t read what they’re saying.” He sat down on the floor next to her and went through the comics in the box. “Maybe… yeah, this one.” He pulled one of the comics out of the box. “I mean we can read it to you, but this one is fun to look at.”

“Mum never let me watch superhero movies, but I’ve seen toys in the store.”

“We can watch them if you want.”

“Are they scary?”

“Not all of them. We’ll watch the scary ones when you’re older.”

“Does this one have a movie?”

“Not this exact comic, but there is a movie with the characters. We can watch it if you want.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think I want to watch that one.”

“We should help Yang preparing breakfast. You can put it on top for later.”

“Okay.” She turned another page before she closed the comic and put it back into the box.

Turned out Effie had a sweet tooth when it came to breakfast. Yang made her fruit salad with yoghurt, oats and honey, and she seemed to be happy with that. Mercury hadn’t thought about that yet, that it was a parent’s job to stop children from eating garbage, usually he barely maintained a more or less decent diet for himself. If he didn’t have Yang that child would have been so screwed.

Mercury was in the kitchen making tea for Yang when the doorbell rang. “I’ll go,” he said and threw a tea bag into the mug before he left the kitchen. He opened the door without wasting a second thought on it, until he stared right into Emerald’s face.

“Don’t look at me as if you’ve seen a ghost.” She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to bring Yang the swatches for the colour scheme, she wanted to see what the cloth looks like in real life.”  

“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that.”

“Is everything alright?”

He heard footsteps behind him. Too fast to be Yang’s. He took a deep breath. The footsteps disappeared into the kitchen, but he saw on Emerald’s face that she had seen her. “Yeah. Thanks for stepping by.”

“Who is that? Are you having someone over?”

“Listen, it’s complicated.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Merc, did you steal that child?”

He looked at her. There was no point in keeping the truth from her, it would only make her more angry. “She’s Cinder’s,” he whispered.

Her eyes turned wide. “Is she here?” she gasped, taking a step back.

“No.” He stepped outside into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “Maybe sit down, okay?”

“I don’t want to sit down! What is going on?”

“Cinder died.”

She sunk down, as if someone had taken all the strength away from her all of a sudden, sitting down the stairs. For a moment she buried her face in her hands, taking deep breaths. “What? How?”

“A fire. I don’t know too much about it.”

“When did she even have a child? Why… if she had a daughter, why is she here? With you?”

The like a thick and heavy blanket, pressing the air out of his lungs until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Emmy…”

“No.” It was almost a whisper. “No!” She got up and he almost expected her to yell at him, to hit him, but she just turned around and ran down the stairs.

“Em, wait!” He followed her. She almost slammed the front door into his face. “Emerald!”

She stopped and turned around, glared at him. Furious. Hurt. “You’ve slept with her!”

“I didn’t know you – I didn’t know what was going on between you two back then, okay?”

“It’s not about that, Mercury! All those years and you didn’t think you had to tell me you’ve slept with her? Or that you had a child?”

“I didn’t even know until a few days ago. I wanted to tell you, but –“

“You didn’t tell me you’ve _slept_ with her!”

“Would it have helped if I had?”

She bit her lip. She always did that when she was fighting back tears and he hated seeing her like that, he hated it more than anything. “Don’t call me,” she said and turned around.

“Fuck.” He groaned, but he knew there was nothing he could do to change her mind right now, or at all. He kicked a can on the floor, sending it flying down the pavement, before he walked back inside.

Yang was waiting for him by the door. He glared at her so she would stop asking questions, but she rolled her eyes and reached for his hand when he closed the door behind him. “Why is she mad?” she whispered. “I’ve heard you yelling.”

“It’s complicated.”

She pulled him closer and he leaned his head against her shoulder for a moment, letting her run her hand through his hair and over his back. “Are you alright?”

No, he wasn’t. Fighting with Yang was one thing, but he had been alright before he had met her and he knew that even though he didn’t want to, he would be alright without her. With Emerald he wasn’t sure about that. It felt like someone had ripped his safety net away.

But no answer was probably as good as any answer. Yang kissed his jaw and cheek, wrapping her arm around him tightly. “I can take Effie out for a walk if you want some time for yourself. Maybe I’ll go visit dad with her, then she can play with Zwei and we won’t have to be back until later today.”

“Mhm.” He pressed a kiss on her neck.

“It will be alright. I’ll call Blake later. We’ll figure this out.”

“It’s not that easy.” He looked at her and brushed some strands of hair out of her face. “It has been a tough time for her.”

“You’re too important to her. She won’t stay mad forever. Try not to sulk all day long, okay?”

“I just need to…” He sighed, but she kissed him and he knew that she knew. He wasn’t good at dealing with these sorts of things, and he wasn’t good at acting like everything was alright when it wasn’t. He could tolerate Yang, but having people around didn’t help most of the time. “Say hi to your dad from me.”

“You know I will do that anyway, no matter if you tell me to or not. I hope Effie isn’t scared of dogs.” She kissed his cheek before she pulled away. “I’ll go get her.”

“Hey, Yang?”

“Yeah?” She turned around again and looked at him. He didn’t know how to phrase it, so he just looked at her, but when she smiled and turned back around he knew she knew.

 

* * *

 

“So… she's Mercury's daughter?” Taiyang sat down next to her on the stairs that lead up to the porch, handing her a cup of tea.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure he didn't know about it?”

“Yeah. If he had known he would have reacted differently. I know him.”

For a moment they both watched the girl play in the garden, wrestling with Zwei for one of his toys. She had made it very clear to Yang that she would always prefer cats over dogs and that this was an exception, but that didn't stop her from laughing for the first time since Yang had met her.

“You know, I've always thought I might have kids with him one day, but... not like this.”

“One that's not yours?”

“Yeah. I mean I have all the bad mum genes, and then she's not even my own. How can I possibly not turn into the evil stepmom?”

“You've got too much from Summer to be like that.”

“How did Summer do it? She never made me feel like she loved Ruby more than me.”

“Because she didn't.” He sipped on his tea, watching Effie throw the toy so Zwei could bring it back to her. “Summer raised you from when you were only a few months old. She always loved her like your own. Effie is older now and I don’t think anyone expects you to have the same relationship with her as if you had raised her. As much as you are like Raven, you’re also like Summer and like me in many ways. You care so much about all the people in your life, not only Ruby, but also your friends. I’m not worried you’ll end up not loving her enough, or that you’d be a bad stepmom.”

“He asked me if I want to move in with him.”

“So you can take care of his daughter?”

“Yeah, basically.” She sighed. “I know it’s a big commitment, but… I mean you can’t really leave him alone with the child anyway. He’s nice and all, but also a bit helpless.”

“You sound a bit like you’re making up excuses. If you want my opinion, I think you should really think this through. Don’t make him put it all on your shoulders only because he doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

“But if I decided not to be involved with her too much it would put a lot of distance between me and Mercury compared to what our relationship is now.”

“Please just really think about whether you just don’t want to break up with your boyfriend or if you really want to be involved with the child.”

She stared into her teacup. “I just feel bad for her. So if I can help… why not? She’s a cute girl, but she has no family, why not share mine with her?”

“You really are a lot like Summer.”

“But I’m also a lot like mum.”

“Not in that regard.”

“If you say so.” It was hard to believe him.

“It’s your choice, but if you really want this, she’s always welcome here. I didn’t expect to be a grandfather quite that soon, but it does have advantages.”

Yang smiled softly. “What do you mean that soon? You have perfect grandpa age.”

“Careful.”

She laughed. “Come on, grandpa, dinner must be ready soon.”

Effie seemed happier when she got inside, not protesting when Taiyang told her to wash her hands and to help Yang with the plates. She still picked the broccoli out of her casserole though, but at least she didn’t feed it to Zwei like Ruby sometimes did.

“I have a cat,” Effie said. “His name is Dante. I miss him. Amber didn’t let me take him with me, so Roman has him right now.”

“Who is Roman?” Yang asked, picking the broccoli from Effie’s plate with her fork.

“Mummy’s boyfriend.” Her face darkened for a moment. She stared at her plate for a moment before she looked up again. “I got him as a kitten and he always sleeps on my pillow.”

“Zwei used to sleep on Ruby’s feet when we still lived here.”

“He still insists on sleeping in my bed,” Taiyang said. “You’ve spoiled him, now he won’t sleep alone.”

“Sometimes I pet Dante and then he licks my hands. Cats groom each other but they only do that to cats they really like, so Dante thinks I’m a cat and he likes me.”

“Maybe we can visit him soon.” They had to go and get Effie’s stuff anyway.

“Do you have a mother?”

Yang  stopped for a moment. Taiyang shoved more food into his mouth, probably so he wouldn’t have to answer that question. “I don’t really talk to my mother, at least not that often,” Yang said eventually. “She left shortly after I was born. My stepmother died when I was a young girl.”

“Why did she leave?”

“It’s complicated.” Yang didn’t even fully understand it herself. It was a puzzle that still didn’t quite make sense to her.

“You think I’m too young to understand it, don’t you?”

“No, it’s… it’s just really hard to explain.”

“Who wants dessert?” Taiyang got up. “I’ll make ice cream with hot raspberries.”

Effie looked down, playing with the sleeves of her hoodie. She barely looked up when Taiyang took her plate and left the room. Yang sighed. “Is something wrong?”

She gave her a grim look. “You’re mad because I asked about your mum, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Are you just saying that or do you mean it?”

“I mean it. No one is mad at you, Effie.”

Effie looked her in the eyes, almost angry. “I know you can just send me back if you don’t like me.”

“Yeah, but we won’t. Mercury is your father and I’m not going to let him send you back, even if he wanted to. Not that he does.”

“Promised?”

“Yes. Promised.”

She let out a deep breath and all of a sudden she didn’t look angry anymore, just sad. “Okay.”

Yang reached out to her and pulled the hood of her sweater over her head. “Hey, Kitty, do you want to see my old room?”

Effie looked up and gave her a tiny little smile. “Yes.”


	6. Chapter 6

Deep breaths.

She didn’t want Blake to see her crying. It was stupid to cry in the first place, stupid to even let it get to her that much after all these years. Emerald tried to wash the tears from her face, but it was just as stupid to try to hide something like this from Blake.

Slow, deep breaths.

She opened the bathroom door. Blake was leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms crossed in front of her chest. She always had this way of avoiding to look at her when she really wanted to know what was up but was also scared of the answer. “Do you want a cup of tea?” she asked, though meaning something completely different  

“He has a fucking daughter.”

“Who?” Blake looked up.

“Mercury.”

“Wait, what? Did he cheat on –“

“No.”

“But –“

“It’s Cinder’s.” She couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Oh.” For a moment they were both silent. “I didn’t know he… he’s been with her.”

“Because he never told me! All these years he listened to me talking about Cinder and he never bothered to tell me he fucked her too! I trusted him!”

“Em, calm down.”

“I’m not calming down!” She hadn’t meant to yell at her, but when Blake flinched she just wanted to cry. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s okay, just –“

“No, it’s not! It’s been six years and she’s still making me yell at you. And now she’s dead and I can’t even talk to Mercury about it because he lied to me and I can never tell her what a horrible person she’s been.”

Blake’s arms were warm as she wrapped them around her, her embrace tight. “You don’t need to tell her that.”

“But she would’ve deserved it.” She leaned against her, burying her face in Blake’s hair.

“No. She doesn’t deserve your attention, or you feeling bad because of her.” Her hand ran up and down her spine.

They curled up together on the sofa. Blake ran her hands through Emerald’s hair, her fingers soft and gentle. When Emerald had first seen her it had scared Emerald that Blake and Cinder were almost the same type, the hair, the eyes. But now she knew that everything about her was so different. Everything about her was soft and gentle. Kind, but also with an underlying strength that she had always envied.

Six years of telling herself she was over it, and now she had to once again realise she wasn’t.

Deep breaths.

 

* * *

 

“Is that the right address?” Yang peaked out of the window. She wasn’t sure what she had expected. The house looked plain, concrete and dark windows.

“Yes,” Effie said. She had grown silent during the car ride, now looking outside with the same sulky expression she always had when something was really bothering her.

“Are you ready to go inside?”

Effie didn’t reply. Instead she opened the door and left the car. Mercury sighed. “Let’s hope Cinder wasn’t hiding a dead body underneath her bed,” he said.

“It’s not going to be easy for her no matter what.”

The apartment complex wasn’t in the best part of town, definitely on the cheaper end. The hallway smelled like weed and Yang started to expect the worst. When Mercury unlocked the door with the keys Amber had given him she was positively surprised.

The apartment clearly wasn’t in good shape. The walls needed painting, the heater barely looked like it was still working, but it was tidy and Cinder clearly had done everything to make it a home. Effie disappeared somewhere in the apartment and Yang closed the door behind her.

“This is weird,” she whispered.

“Because she’s dead?”

“Yes, but mainly because I didn’t know her.” Yang opened the door to the living room. The bookshelf was full of thick illustrated books, fashion and art, a cardigan was hanging over the armrest of the couch. There were pictures on the wall, most of them of Effie, some with her mum. “She was pretty,” Yang said.

“Are you jealous of a dead woman?”

“Nah, I’m the hottest shit you’ll ever get.” She moved on to the couch. It was old, the fabric thin and bleached in some places, but without stains or crumbs.

“Cinder always loved reinventing herself every couple of years. She didn’t have these books when I still knew her.” He turned around. “She always threw a lot of stuff away, so we don’t have that much to pack and store somewhere.”

“We should take all the important stuff with us today. Pictures, her favourite toys, hard drives. Then we bring it…” To his apartment or hers. They hadn’t talked about the whole moving in together thing yet, but she knew at some point they had to. “I can ask dad and Ruby if they help us getting everything we don’t need immediately to his place. Like those books. She might want to have them when she’s older, but I doubt she will want to look at them now.”

“Maybe we should start in her room. That’s where most of the stuff we’ll take with us today is.”

Effie was sitting on her bed. Her room was warm and homely, with pictures she had drawn and fairy lights on lilac walls, toys and plushies spread over the floor and bedsheets with cats on them. Yang sat down next to her while Mercury leaned against the doorframe, hesitant to follow her.

“It’s a nice room,” Yang said.

Effie nodded, pressing her lips together as if she was trying to keep herself from crying. “I don’t want to live anywhere else.”

“I know.” Yang wrapped her arm around her shoulders and she leaned against her. “We can take pictures, then you’ll never forget what it looked like.”

“But it will still be gone.”

“Not all of it. We won’t throw anything away that you want to keep. We can take your blanket and pillow home today, then you can sleep in it tonight.”

“It’s still not the same.”

“If you want me to I’ll paint your new room in the same colour.” Mercury stepped closer and kneeled down in front of them. “We’ll make it look the same. Even prettier if you want.”

“Or whatever you want it to look like.” Yang pulled her closer.

They all looked up when the doorbell rang. Mercury was the first to get up. “I’ll see who it is,” he said.

Effie got up and followed him before Yang could. When she went around the corner Effie was jumping into the arms of a tall red haired man, in the same moment Mercury said: “Oh no, not you.”

“You know him?” Yang asked and stepped closer while the man picked Effie up. Well, at least she knew him.

“Roman Torchwick,” Mercury said.

“Oh, Cinder’s boyfriend?”

“You’ve dated her?” Mercury rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. Of course you would.”

“Oh, we don’t want to discuss that in front of the child, do we?” Roman carried Effie inside and Mercury looked like he just wanted to throw him out right away when he closed the door behind him. “I live across the street and I saw you from my window, so I thought I’d step by to say hello.”

“How is Dante?” Effie asked when Roman sat her down on the couch in the living room. “Does he miss me? Can I see him?”

“Yes, he does. He’s incredibly unhappy without you. You can visit him if your _dad_ agrees.” The way he stressed the word made Mercury roll his eyes.

“Sure you can,” Yang said. “I mean if it’s right across the street… we’re here anyway.”

“Effie, why don’t you go to your room for a bit?” Roman said.

“Are you going to have an adult talk?” Effie narrowed her eyebrows. “Or are you going to yell at each other?”

“No one is going to yell at anyone,” Yang said. “It’s just the boring kind of adult stuff.”

“Okay.” Effie got up. She still looked grumpy when she left the room, eyeing them suspiciously.

Yang looked back and forth between Roman and Mercury before she sat down on the sofa next to Roman. “So you two know each other?”

“We’re old friends,” Roman said.

“I wouldn’t call it friends.” Mercury stayed where he was, standing right next to the door with his arms crossed. Yang decided to ignore him.

“You know Effie well, don’t you?”

“I’ve raised her. I would have taken her in, but apparently they rather give her to some emo boy who accidentally fathered her.”

Mercury rolled his eyes. “He left out the part where he went to prison for an armed robbery when he was sixteen.”

“He left out the part where a month ago he didn’t even know she existed.”

“Which wasn’t my fault.”

“If you guys don’t stop this nonsense I will make you regret it.” Yang gave Mercury a glare that made sure he knew she was serious. “You’re like two parents arguing over custody after a nasty breakup.”

“Only that he just got custody without even wanting it,” Roman said.

Yang glared at him. “You’re not exactly helping your own case here.”

“What, he doesn’t like me anyway. It’s not like he’s going to give me every second weekend or something.”

“Nah, but he’s doing what I say anyway. So piss him off all you want, but not me.”

“You wish,” Mercury grumbled.

“It would be good for Effie to have someone in her life who she knows and trusts.”

Roman chuckled. “Didn’t expect you to get yourself a psychologist girlfriend.”

“Shut up before I change my mind.”

Mercury smirked. “Better listen to her, she doesn’t give second chances.”

Yang glared at him. “Careful.”

“So what are we gonna do about the cat?” Roman leaned back. He definitely felt at home here. “That beast hates me and I can’t lock him into my bathroom forever.”

“I don’t like cats,” Mercury said.

Yang rolled her eyes. “You always said whenever my father starts to ask for grandchildren we just start to breed dogs and let him cuddle the puppies. Cats need way less attention.”

“You can have as many cats in _your_ apartment as you want.”

“When you move in with me you’ll still end up living with that cat.”

“Now you want to talk about moving in together?”

“I never said I didn’t want to talk about moving in together. You know, it’s just weird that the first time you propose the idea it’s when you suddenly have a daughter and want me to help looking after her.”

“Maybe I already thought about it before this whole thing happened.”

“But you never said anything.”

“Oh, wow, you’re just painting me as the liar now?”

“I didn’t say that, but you’re leaving all the bonding to me without even making an attempt. This might be convenient for you, but _you’re_ her father, not me.”

“Guys.” Roman rested one of his feet on the coffee table. “Maybe you should pay someone to listen to your crap, but there aren’t many things I could care less about.”

“Let’s go visit that stupid cat.” Yang got up. “You can stay here and do whatever.”

Mercury rolled his eyes. “So much about no one is going to yell at anyone.”

“Shut up before I do yell at you.”

Roman’s apartment was neat and tidy, furniture carefully selected and decoration minimalistic but following a concept that would have made Weiss proud. Dante turned out to be a big, black, long haired cat, glaring at Roman and Yang but letting Effie pick him up and pet him. Yang watched Effie bury her face in the cat’s fur and Roman tell her about all the crazy adventures Dante had been up to without her for a moment. She felt like an unwelcome visitor in here.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” Roman asked all of a sudden.

“Yeah, sure.”

His kitchen was neat and tidy. Yang leaned against the counter while he made the coffee. It was one of those fancy coffee machines that peole had who didn’t see coffee as something to help them through their morning but as a lifestyle. Weiss had bought one a couple of years ago and was still mad that Yang couldn’t tell the difference between that and the filter coffee she drank at home.

“Why did Cinder never tell him about her?” Yang asked.

“Do you know what happened back then?”

“No, he never told me anything about her.”

“It’s been kind of a mess. Cinder has been self-destructive before Effie was born, and the only way for her to stop destroying her own life was to destroy someone else’s. She didn’t mean to, but that didn’t change that bad shit happened to her and she coped with it in really unhealthy ways.” The cup her gave her was white and looked the same as his. Not like the diverse collection of cups with cute prints she had at home. “Is he still friends with Emerald?”

“Yeah, but she’s a bit mad because of this whole thing.”

“They were friends with Cinder. Not the best kind of friends, Cinder really just wanted someone to praise the ground she walked on. Emerald was madly in love with her, but Mercury ended up talking her into ditching her. Cinder didn’t cope well and moved away. Shortly afterwards she found out she was pregnant and appeared on my doorstep again.”

“Oh, wow. No surprise Emerald freaked out.”

“You know, you seem like a smart woman, but your boyfriend isn’t the best with kids.”

“I know. I’ve been dating him for five years now, he never even tried to hide it. But he’s… trying. And he has changed since I’ve met him first.” She watched him sip on his coffee for a moment. “You care about her a lot, don’t you?”

“Well, I thought she was mine for a year.” He shrugged. “As I said, Cinder could be kind of a bitch.”

“And you still stayed with her?”

“Sort of. We broke up once a month, but we never told Effie about that. I couldn’t really leave Cinder alone with her after all.”

“Cinder’s death must have been hard for her.”

“Yeah, it was. But the whole situation of being away from home and staying with strangers almost must have been worse. I mean I know it’s the law and why they didn’t let her stay with me, but it’s stupid. She knows me, she shouldn’t have to live with your stupid boyfriend.”

The worst thing was that he was right. Yang could only imagine what had happened if her father had died and the system had forced her to stay with Raven instead of Summer. “Right now we can only make the best of it. I won’t let him screw her over I promise. But she needs stability and fighting won’t help her too.” She took the last sip of her coffee and put her cup down to take her phone out. “You know, why don’t you just give me your number? Then we can talk about more Dante-dates. She really misses him, and probably you as well.”

He rolled his eyes a bit, but he nodded and typed his number into her phone. “She doesn’t like chicken, and she eats broccoli when you make soup out of it and let her eat it with lots of croutons. Also she should go to a kindergarten or to school, Cinder never wanted that, but it would be good for her.”

“She definitely should visit one once everything is settled.” He gave her her phone back. “I’ll call you, I promise. But we should probably go back and pack some of her things.”

Mercury had already started to pack Effie’s clothes. Yang avoided to talk to him by helping Effie pick her favourite toys, plushies and books, promising her to get the rest once they had worked on her room a bit more.

Effie was already sitting in the car when Mercury closed the tailgate. “Lots of stuff,” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked at her hands for a moment. It had never felt right to be mad at him for long.

“Hey, are… are we good?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t… I don’t know. I mean yeah, but I still kinda meant what I’ve said. I just didn’t want to think about it before I’ve said it.”

“You know I don’t just want you as a babysitter, yeah?”

“Yes, but you never asked me to move in with you before.” She looked at him. “I mean we’ve been dating for a while.”

“I mean it kinda worked.” He ran his hand through his hair and stared at some point behind her. “I like having you around. I don’t mind having you around. But the moving part would have been a hassle and I thought that was unnecessary because I wasn’t unhappy with how things were.”

“So you were just too lazy.”

He shrugged. “Kinda. I knew we might make that step at some point, but there was no need to rush it before.”

“Yeah.” She reached for his hand, her fingers just slightly brushing his. “I mean I didn’t bring it up either.”

His kiss was soft, apologetic. “I sleep better when you’re around.”

She smiled softly. “We probably should talk this through when we’re alone. There are… things to consider.”

“Yeah.” She felt his hands on her hips, fingers drawing circles on her skin, his lips on her cheek. “Will this work out? Between us?”

“I want it to.” She brushed his hair out of his face. “So I guess we’ll have to make it work.”


	7. Chapter 7

Emerald didn’t pick up her phone.

Mercury had never expected it to bother him that much. Emerald had always just been there. Often telling him how much he got on her nerves, but always around when he needed her. The one thing he could always rely on. And now, the thought of Emerald not picking up her phone lurked in the back of his mind, while he was preparing dinner for Effie, while he was kissing Yang and even while he slept.

It bothered him way too much.

The zoo had been Yang’s idea. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was to get his mind off it, to make him bond with Effie, or both. She had made it sound like a fool proof plan. Some quality time just between the two of them, an activity she would definitely like, all the fluffy animals supposed to give them something to talk about when he ran out of things to say again. It still felt weird when they were finally there, Effie standing next to him, looking at two lions sleeping in the sun.

“The sign says they hunt at night.” He looked up. “Cats sleep a lot too, don’t they?”

“Dante sleeps all day long. But they are lions, they are strong and fast.” Effie wasn’t even trying to hide her disappointment.

“Yeah, but if they let them hunt the zebras here it wouldn’t be long until they didn’t have any left.”

“What if they let them hunt in the wild? People hunt because we have too many deer, but they could also use lions instead.”

“Maybe they’re just lazy. People feed them, so why run after some unwilling deer and have all the hair between your teeth?”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Effie looked at him. “What’s your favourite animal?”

“Platypus.”

“What?”

“It’s… it’s a weird animal. If they have them here I’ll show you.”

“Yes. I want to see them. Can we go now and watch the elephant unicorns?”

He blinked at her. “The what?”

“I think they have them here. I’ll show you. I like them a lot.” She took his hand and pulled him away from the lions. “Zebras are boring,” she said, pointing to their enclosure. “They’re just horses with stripes, and horses are boring. They are so big but very fragile. You always have to brush them. Lions can groom themselves. They lick their fur with their tongue. Dante does that too.”

“What about giraffes?”

“They’re tall, but when they drink they have to try really hard to reach the ground.”

“So you’re not a big fan of vegetarians, huh?”

“I like elephants and they only eat plants.” She stopped. “Look, it’s an elephant unicorn!”

He looked at the enclosure, then at her, then at the single animal in there again. “That’s a rhino.”

“Some things have more than one word.”

He chuckled. The rhino was lying in the sun, probably hadn’t moved for a while, possibly dead. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“What’s Yang’s favourite animal?”

“She likes dogs a lot. She also loves bears and moose.”

“Moose are great. I like them too. I would like to cuddle a bear, they’re big and fluffy.”

“Yang said the same thing.”

“Do you love her a lot?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“Why are you asking?”

“I asked first.”

He stared at the lazy rhino again. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So you’re going to stay together forever?”

Oh, well. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t really plan ahead like that. But I don’t plan to break up with her right now.”

“Right now?”

“I mean… I don’t plan to break up with her at all. I’ll never get anyone that pretty again anyway.”

“Promise you’ll be nice to her?”

“I’m incredibly nice to her.”

“Can we buy Yang flowers on the way home? I’ll pick them and we’ll say they’re from you. Do you know what her favourite flowers are?”

“Anything yellow. It’s her favourite colour. She likes it when they’re mixed, or wild flowers. Sunflowers too.”

“I want to see platties now.”

“Platypus. Yeah, let’s see if they have them here.”

Luckily, they did. Mercury had to lift Effie up so she could watch the platypus swim around behind the glass. She watched it for a moment before. “It looks like an otter duck. Why do you like it?”

“Usually animals either breastfeed or they lay eggs. The platypus is just there to mess with scientists. You can’t say all animals that lay eggs don’t breastfeed anymore. When they brought the first platypus from Australia people thought someone had just glued a beak to another animal because it looked so ridiculous. They didn’t believe it was real.”

“So you like it because it’s funny?”

“Yes. Exactly.” He smirked. “They’re poisonous too.”

“They don’t look poisonous.”

“That’s the trick. They’re cute and ridiculous and then they come after you.”

“I like that. Can we look at the snakes? I like snakes.”

“Yeah.”

She wanted to see every snake. They stood in front of a terrarium for ten minutes before they realised it was empty. But it didn’t bother him as much as he had thought it would, both staring at an empty terrarium and spending time with his daughter. She asked him about his family when they were having burgers and fries afterwards, and when he said he didn’t have any, he told her all about Yang’s instead. Her sister, her father, her friends, only briefly touching on the topic of her mums.

Yang was at his place already when they came home. He wondered why he hadn’t asked her to move in with him sooner, because the thought of her not being there when he got home bothered him. He had always preferred being alone, but he wanted to be alone with her. Effie told her all about the zoo and Mercury busied himself  with finally going through the cramped bookshelf in her room, trying to decide what to store somewhere else and what to throw away.

“Are you sure you want to throw your comics away?”

He turned around. Yang was standing in the doorway, watching him work, probably for a while already. “I don’t want to throw them away. I want to sort out the ones that are too brutal and let Effie read the rest.”

“Well, as long as you understand that chaos.” She sat down on the couch Effie was still sleeping on at night. “Effie told me it was your idea to buy me flowers. It was hers, wasn’t it?”

“Hey, why are you so sure it wasn’t mine?”

“Come on, you never bought me flowers. That’s not your kind of thing.”

“Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic, I just hid it really well.” He sat down next to her, his fingertips ghosting over her knee.

“That’s not the kind of romantic thing you’d do. When you want to be romantic you buy my favourite cookies and pretend you had them anyway and wouldn’t mind if I ate them, or you let me have the last slice of pizza.”

He chuckled. After all the time they had been together it wasn’t as scary anymore how easily she read him. “I think she’s a bit afraid I’ll screw this up. She likes you a lot.”

“Because she hasn’t met you before we were dating. I turned you into an acceptable boyfriend.” She reached for his hand.

“Acceptable, huh?”

“Barely.” She smirked and pecked his cheek. “The flowers are beautiful, by the way,” she said, before getting up. “I’ll tell Effie that you did a great job picking them.”


	8. Chapter 8

The day they cleaned out Cinder’s old apartment for good was the day it got worse. They had kept her away from it as much as they could, letting her spend the day with Ruby while Taiyang helped with the move. Most things ended up in his garage, Effie’s stuff in Mercury’s now-empty office, his desk cramped into a corner in the living room and Yang’s old sofa ending up at her place again to make space for Effie’s bed.

She hated her new room. Of course, it wasn’t as nice as her old room, not as nice as it should have been, and the need to move became all the more apparent again. She didn’t want to be in her room, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

She changed.

Effie became silent, barely wanted to eat, or do pretty much anything. She didn’t want to go to zoo, didn’t care about comics, barely wanted to watch TV. In the evening Yang stayed with her until she fell asleep, sometimes for hours, in the morning she had trouble getting out of bed.

So they decided to get the damn cat.

They knew it wouldn’t fix everything. But Roman was just glad to get rid of him and when Dante slowly left the box, eyeing them suspiciously and twitching his nose, Effie smiled for the first time in a while.

“Do you want to show him your room?” Mercury asked. He somehow hoped the cat would make her like the room a bit more, at least for now, until they had figured out where to live. The apartment was too small for them anyway.

“I’ll let him explore it on his own.”

So they sat there and watched the cat walk through the room, sniffing everything he didn’t know, and eventually disappearing underneath the couch.

“When will Yang be home?” Effie asked.

“She told me not to wait with dinner, so probably late. She said it’s a busy time at work.”

“She sleeps here a lot, but she doesn’t live here.”

“Yeah.”

“Why doesn’t she live here?”

He knew he had to be careful. If they didn’t end up moving in together he didn’t want to get her hopes up. “We thought about it, but her apartment is closer to where she works, mine is closer to where I work. Also sometimes it’s not too bad to have two apartments. Like when she has friends over but I want to have the evening for myself. It has upsides and downsides.”

“Mhm.” She watched Dante appear again, dust between his whiskers. He tried to remember how he had felt when his mum had left, but the memory was discoloured by years of first learning to hate her and then becoming indifferent.

“How are you… feeling?”

“I miss mum.”

“Is there… is there something I can do to make you feel better?”

She shrugged. “You can’t bring her back.” Her voice was shaking.

“You know, I’m not good at this whole comforting thing. I never learned it.” He sat up. “Yang is better with that. What would she do?”

“She hugs me and then she tells me a story. When I can’t fall asleep, she sings in Chinese.”

“I’m not a good singer. Neither a storyteller. But you can have a hug if you want.”

She looked almost careful when she moved closer, scared, but when he wrapped his arms around her, it wasn’t awkward. She didn’t wrap her arms around him, just curled up on his lap and leaned her head against his chest. There was something endearing about it, a feeling he hadn’t thought he was capable of.

“I don’t like my room,” she whispered. “It looks like someone has taken my old room and broke it.”

“I know.” He hugged her a bit tighter. “I thought about… do you want to stay in this apartment?”

“I don’t want to live with someone else again.”

“No. No, it’s not like that. I thought about both of us leaving together. Moving to a new place.”

“What about Yang?”

“I’m not breaking up with her. She’d still be around just as much as she’s now.” At least he hoped she would. “You could have a bigger room and pick the colour of the walls if you want.”

“Of _all_ the walls?”

“I mean we’d have to make a compromise, but they don’t have to be white.”

“So it would be my place too, not just yours.”

“This apartment is yours too, but I… I know what you mean. Yang can help us make it pretty. I’m not good at that.”

He felt her relax in his arms. “Yeah, I think I would like that.”

Dante jumped on the couch, sitting down and starting to lick his paws. “He looks like he doesn’t hate it here,” Mercury said. “But he sleeps in your bed, not mine.”

“You can’t tell cats where to sleep. They’re too proud for that.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you awake?”

Yang heard Mercury move before he wrapped his arms around her. She felt his breath on her neck. “Now I am.”

“I thought about our living situation.”

“Well, now I really am awake.” He sighed and ran his hand through her hair. “So?”

“If I moved in with you, it would be a commitment. I know that. I can’t just be in her life and then disappear again as if she didn’t mean anything to me. I can’t live with the two of you and only be your girlfriend without being… something to her.”

His movements stopped for a moment. “What does that mean?”

“I think I want that. I want… I mean I obviously want you, but I think I don’t just want you _despite_ her. I am okay with it this life and I think I want both of you in it. I care about her. I’m not scared that I’m bad for her anymore. I don’t think I’m rushing into something I should have thought through a bit more.”

She felt his lips on her temple, soft and gentle. “So we’re doing this? Moving in together?”

“Yeah.” She felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. She smiled when she kissed him. “I mean we have to decide whether to move into my apartment or a new one, we have to make sure Effie gets better, maybe get her a therapist, and stop that cat from eating my –“

He kissed her before she could say another word, soft enough to make her heart melt. “You done?”

“Yes.” She smiled. He pulled her closer, burying his head in the crook of her neck. There was something endearing about him wanting to be close to her like this. About letting himself want to be close to her. She ran her hand through his hair.

“I know you’re not into that sort of thing, and neither am I, because there’s basically no point in it, but I’m just saying if it was something that would mean anything to us I would probably ask you to marry me at some point.”

She kissed the tip of his nose. She had never been into the thought of marriage, and maybe it spoke for their relationship that she felt like they didn’t need it. Maybe it spoke for him that he knew it wasn’t what she wanted. “I don’t want to marry you too.”

It was all they needed to say, basically.


	9. Chapter 9

Raven called on a Tuesday. It was a sunny day, unusually warm for May, and the tears dried fast on her cheeks. Yang made a cup of tea because that was what Blake would do, and then she called Blake because it didn’t help.

“She just called and asked how I’ve been.” Yang dug her spoon into the lemon cake Blake had brought, samples from the bakery for their wedding cake. Sugar to make her feel better and wedding decisions to keep her mind busy. She knew her too well. “Why would she call now? She just left me, twice, and each time she waited for me to call her because for some reason that’s something she can’t be bothered with.”

“What did you say?”

“I hung up. I was angry and just a moment away from being angry enough to yell at her, but she doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve my attention.” She left out the part where she had burst out into tears. It was humiliating that Raven still had that effect on her.

“What do you want her to do? You’re mad at her for leaving and never calling you, which you have every right to be, and you’re mad that she called you like that. I’m not saying it’s unjustified, but what do you want her to do instead? To leave you alone? To apologise?”

“I don’t know. I thought I wanted her to leave me alone, but I think I don’t.” Yang sipped on her tea. For some reason it always tasted different when Blake made it, and it always was way more comforting. “Do you like the chocolate cake by the way? It’s very good chocolate cake. Not the best, but above average.”

Blake rolled her eyes at the sudden change of topic, but she didn’t insist on talking about Raven. “Try that one, raspberry cream and vanilla sponge.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah, it tastes amazing. That’s why we picked it for our wedding cake.”

“You already made up your mind?”

Blake shrugged. “Emerald called the bakery and told them we weren’t sure anymore. The cake is so expensive she might as well just get a new set of free samples. She thought that would cheer you up.”

“She really did that?”

“She’s mad at Mercury, not you.”

“Anyway, how is she?”

“The whole thing isn’t easy for her. She’s… okay. But she still doesn’t want to talk to Mercury. She will eventually, but she barely talks to me about it, so maybe she tries to avoid the topic that way.”

“They need to figure this out. He would never admit it, but he needs her.” She tried the maracuya cake and shook her head. “That one’s horrible. Tastes like soap.”

“They can’t avoid each other forever. Also I didn’t like that one either.” Blake put down her cup of tea and looked at her. “So Effie is going to stay with him now?”

“Yeah. I hope you can meet her soon, she’s adorable.”

“I’d love to meet her. I just don’t want Emerald to think I’m doing this behind her back, you know?”

“No, I completely get that.” Yang took another sip of her tea, staring out of the window. “We will probably move in together.”

“You, Mercury and Effie?”

“Yeah. You know I’ve thought about it a lot and I don’t think he only wants me to take care of the child, so –“

“Yang, did you really think he’d do that?”

Yang looked up. Blake was smirking, pouring more tea into her cup. “I’ve thought about a lot of things. I mean it’s stupid, I know. He wouldn’t keep me around just for that, he’d rather just avoid me and Effie. He likes being alone way too much. But I think I want to have this whole family thing with him, with him and Effie. I like her and I mean you can’t leave him alone with her, can you? He’s his own worst enemy when it comes to letting himself get close to people.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself. I know you’re often rushing into things, but if there’s one thing you definitely won’t rush into it’s becoming a stepmom for his daughter.”

“So you’re not telling me it’s a stupid idea?”

“No. It’s serious with the two of you, so it makes sense for you to tackle this together. Moving in together actually might be a good idea.”

Yang smiled at her. “So now we just have to find an apartment. Mine is bigger than his, but it would be nice to have a place to move in together. All three of us deciding which furniture to keep, which one to buy, which colour to paint the walls.”

“Do you really think you can make Mercury let you paint the walls in anything other than white or grey?”

“He already promised Effie to let her pick the colours, so this is a victory for both of us.”

 

* * *

 

With Effie around it was hard to find time for just the two of them. At night they had to be prepared for her to have a nightmare, and with her not going to school yet the first time she wasn’t around Mercury in a while was when Amber had finally got her an appointment with her new therapist.

They totally did use her therapy session to have sex. 

“Fifteen minutes,” Yang mumbled. They were lying in her bed, still not willing to leave the warmth of their post orgasmic bliss. She loved it when he wrapped his arms around her like that, lazily pulling her close and burying his face in her hair rather for his own comfort than hers. When he hugged her because he really wanted her close and not because he thought she would like it.

“Don’t remind me.” She felt his breath on her neck. “Is it bad if I’m really glad we’re having a moment for ourselves?”

“No, it’s not. My dad said it’s normal.” She closed her eyes and leaned against him. “I mean I love you and I don’t want you around every hour of the day.”

“You’re bearable.”

“Biggest compliment you ever gave me.” She kissed his cheek. “Fourteen minutes.”

“With or without getting dressed?”

“Without.” With, but if she said that he would never get up in time. “Try to look presentable. The apartment sounded promising.”

“I still don’t know why you insisted on having a bathtub.”

“Only because you don’t use them. But I do.”

“Never seen you in one.”

“Because there is no point, I’m not taking baths to get you hot and bothered, I do it to relax.”

“What a shame.” He pulled away from her and sat up. She was missing his warmth immediately. “We’ll take your bed when we move, it really is more comfortable.”

“And bigger.”

“It’s not like we’re actually using all that space.” He picked up his clothes, getting dressed. “If the bed even fits into the bedroom.”

“It will. Effie gets the big bedroom and then we’ll just pick the bigger one of the other two rooms, have the other one as a guest room. If this apartment works out. It’s more space than we actually need, but cheaper than keeping both of our apartments.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“Mhm.” She got up. With a child in the house it would be harder to find times for themselves like this and she almost missed the old times already. “Where is my bra?”

“Still in the living room.”

“Oh, yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Effie looked happier than before when she climbed into the car. “How was it?” Yang asked, turning around in her car seat to look at her.

“She’s nice. I like her. Are we going to look at the new apartment now?”

“Yes,” Mercury said. “But we’re not sure yet if it will work out, so try to look like you’re not going to pour apple juice over the floor.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Mercury might,” Yang said. “The only reason why his apartment isn’t a complete mess is that Weiss and I clean it from time to time.”

They were almost late because the area was a nightmare to park. The building itself was one of those old houses that people had once rented because they were alternative and artsy and now picked because they were nice to raise a family in. It was the opposite of what Yang had imagined to end up in, but right in this moment it didn’t even seem too bad.

They weren’t the only ones who wanted to see the apartment. The landlord shoved them inside with about twenty other adults . Yang took Mercury’s hand to seem at least half as stable and settled as the older couple that had come in expensive looking business suits. The apartment was nice though. Big windows, old wooden floors.

“I bet they’re doctors”, Yang whispered. “We can’t compete with that.”

“Come on, you’re an engineer and I’m an IT specialist. He’ll think if the heater breaks you can repair it for free.”

Yang looked at the landlord, an older man who was just as wide as tall, his skin in a constant shade of red. “He probably rather needs a doctor in the house than an engineer and a lazy IT guy.”

“Where is Effie?”

Yang looked around. “Oh no.” She let go of Mercury’s hand and left the living room. “Effie?” She opened the door to one of the bedrooms to find another couple already taking measurements.

She found Effie in the bathroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her feet dangling above the ground. She looked up when Yang closed the door behind her. “Here you are,” Yang said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I don’t like those people.”

“Any reason why?” She sat down next to her.

“My mum had friends like that. They were boring and mum was always mad when they didn’t like me.”

“I don’t like them either. Also we all want the same apartment, so we really don’t have to be friends with them.”

“Are we going to move in here?”

“If we get it.” Yang shrugged. “Do you like it?”

“It looks boring. I like yours better.”

“Because it’s empty. My apartment looked even worse before I moved in. Once we’ve painted the walls and decorated it it will look nice.” She ruffled her hair. “What about we go back outside and not like all the other adults together?”

“Okay.” Effie got up. She took Yang’s hand when they left the bathroom, and squeezed it hard when the yelling started.

“Holy shit”, Yang whispered when they walked into the living room. Two couples, one of them the one in the expensive suits, were yelling at each other right in the middle of the room, and the other contestants were slowly starting to chime in.

“It’s not my fault,” Mercury said. “I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

“What is this about?” Yang asked, slowly backing off.

“That woman in the red dress told the landlord that she doesn’t have children and therefore won’t make too much noise, then the woman in the grey suit complained that this was cheating because now he was biased and what not, now they’re all yelling at each other.” He shook his head. “Yang, if that is what it takes to get an apartment we’ll just stay in yours forever, I’m not willing to go through this shit, no matter how pretty and big the apartment is.”

“You want the apartment?”

They both turned around. The landlord was standing in front of them, looking as if he was about to either yell at someone or start to cry. “Yeah,” Yang said.

“You can have it. I don’t want those people living here in my house.” He opened his binder and pulled out a form. “Just fill that in. I actually didn’t want to rent it to young people, I once had university students here who just partied all the time, but you have a child, so I’m not too worried about that.”

“Oh yes, she’s a light sleeper, so we always have to be very quit in the evening.” Yang took the form and gave it to Mercury so he could fill it out. Her handwriting with her left hand was even worse than his.

“I’ll just go and hope they’ll leave soon. I don’t want to tell them the apartment is taken, maybe they’ll end up yelling at me.”

“I’d offer to tell them, but they probably wouldn’t believe me.” Yang gave him a warm smile. “Maybe just tell them to fill out the form and that you’ll give them a call.”

“I might do that.” The landlord took the form Mercury gave back to him. “It will be nice to have a family live here again. Makes the house feel a bit livelier.”

They left before the landlord broke the bad news to the other contestants. Yang reached for Mercury’s hand, squeezing it for a brief moment. It was a warm summer’s day. She had an apartment for her new family, and she hadn’t expected it, but it didn’t feel wrong. Maybe she wasn’t like her mother after all.


	10. Chapter 10

“I mean I like the idea of a buffet, but we’d have to change the room arrangements again, because we need more space over here when everyone gets up to get food.” Blake pointed at the plan in front of her. “We could have the buffet here and later move it aside when everyone is done eating and wants to dance.”

“Don’t you think that will be too much of a hassle? Also we’ll probably still have leftovers that people want to snack, I’d rather not have them right next to the dancefloor. But then again, where do we put it?” Emerald groaned and leaned back on the couch. “Organising a wedding is so stressful. I should have accepted Weiss’ offer to organise it for us.”

“We did, we just said she didn’t have to organise _everything_ for us. We can still ask her for help with this one.”

Emerald looked at her. There was something about Blake that she couldn’t quite put into words. That warmth she felt when they were alone, Emerald resting her head on Blake’s stomach while they were both reading and it was just the two of them, sharing a moment when they usually would have wanted to be alone. Sometimes she wondered what she had done to deserve such a beautiful girlfriend. One with silky black hair, who loved books more than she loved most people and still liked to be around her, share her life with her.

“We should ask Weiss and Yang what they think.” Emerald ran her hand up and down Blake’s spine. “How about we order Chinese takeaway tonight and try to forget about all the wedding stress?”

“I’m sorry this is so stressful for you.” Blake looked at her and leaned in closer without touching her. She never did when she felt guilty about something and Emerald cupped her cheeks with her hands before she kissed her.

“That was to be expected.” She kissed the tip of her nose. “I said I want to marry you, I said I want a big wedding, and I still do.”

Blake smiled softly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She brushed some strands of hair out of her face. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Blake followed her into the kitchen anyway. Emerald knew she was watching her, but she had told her it didn’t bother her a long time ago. “Hey, have you talked to Mercury lately?” Blake asked.

Emerald froze in her movements for a moment before she took a cup out of the kitchen cabinet. “No.”

“Are you… are you planning on talking to him?”

“No.” She turned on the water kettle. “I don’t know.”

“Is it because he lied to you or because it brings back memories?”

“Both.” She stared at the water kettle in front of her, or at nothing at all. “It’s not like I want this, or like I feel good about the situation, but I just…”

“I know you don’t.” She heard Blake’s footsteps behind her, then felt her arms wrapping around her. “He’s too important to you to let Cinder destroy what you had.”

“I know you’re right, but how am I going to look at that child and not think of her?”

“It will get better. I promise. And I won’t leave you alone with it.” She pressed her lips on Emerald’s neck. “She’s not her. She’s going to grow out of her influence now that she has Mercury and Yang.”

“I thought I was over her.”

“That’s why you need him more than ever.”

 

* * *

 

It was the first time they brought Effie along for one of Yang’s family Sundays. Even Weiss had made it today, but Emerald and Blake were missing. Yang had told Blake they would bring her along before, it had only seemed fair. Mercury hadn’t expected her to come, but it still stung.

“She’s cute,” Weiss said. “But how long can someone chase that dog through the garden without getting tired?”

“Zwei will get tired before she does. He’s old.” Mercury was standing in the kitchen with Weiss, watching Effie and Zwei through the window. “But it’s good if she burns off some energy.”

“I don’t know anything about children.”

“Me neither. Yang said that.”

“At least you know to trust her with that.”

“It’s nice to know you have faith in me.” He smirked and leaned against the kitchen counter.

“I know better than to have faith in you.”

“I don’t even have to try hard to be better than my own dad. You just gotta know who to compare yourself with.”

“Sometimes I really want to hit you.”

He laughed. “Come on, don’t give me that look.”

“I’m just glad I know Yang won’t let you screw this up. I –“

The doorbell rang and they both looked up. “Your girlfriend?” Mercury asked, but Weiss shook her head.

“She’s on that trip with the kids she’s mentoring, won’t be back before Thursday. I’ll go open the door.”

Maybe it was Sun, but Mercury couldn’t imagine him stepping by when Blake wasn’t here. He looked out of the window. Effie had went from chasing Zwei through the garden to trying to teach him how to do a roll, mainly by showing him what to do while he sat there and watched. Mercury smirked and turned around to pour himself in another cup of coffee, right before he heard familiar voices in from the hallway.

Blake saw him first, while Emerald had still turned her back on him. She smiled at him and then took her jacket off. He wasn’t sure what to do. Yang had told Blake they’d be here today, right? Yeah, she had. He remembered asking her about it at least twice.

“We wanted to eat outside”, Weiss said. “I’ll go and tell Taiyang that now we definitely need to carry the dining room table outside.”

“We didn’t mean to cause you any inconveniences,” Blake said.

Weiss rolled her eyes. “You know what he’d say about that. Come on, get inside, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Emerald looked right through him. She took her shoes off and then searched for something in the pockets of her jacket until Blake took Weiss’ hand and pulled her with her into the kitchen.

“So you brought the girl, huh?” She still didn’t look at him.

“Yeah. She’s in the garden.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest because he didn’t know what to do with his hands. “You wanna meet her?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t wanna see her for the first time in front of the others.” She almost whispered.

“She’s playing with the dog.”

She nodded and he followed her to the terrace door. He stepped outside, but she stayed where she was, leaning against the doorframe and watching Effie from the porch. She sat on the grass and petted Zwei who sat on her lap, looking at them, but not getting up.

“She looks just like her,” Emerald said.

“She’s just a child.”

“You’re biased.”

“Yang says she has my eyes. She loves cats and you know Cinder always hated all animals. You know, Cinder was messed up, but there is still hope for Effie.”

“Effie.” Emerald took a deep breath. “Doesn’t sound like a name Cinder would pick.”

“Her actual name is Phoebe. But she hates that one.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about you and Cinder?” Emerald didn’t look at him, just kept staring at Effie who was petting Zwei again, but he had no doubt she was aware of them watching her.

“Would it have helped? You were miserable. It was hard enough to make you get away from her. You would have been better off if you had never found out.”

“But you were lying to me.”

“I was just not telling you the whole truth and would it really have made a difference if Effie hadn’t appeared on my doorstep one day? We weren’t in a relationship or anything, it just happened once or twice because we were bored. I didn’t know you had something going on.” He took a deep breath. He was saying all the wrong things again. “I’m not saying it was the best thing to do, okay?”

“She still looks just like her.”

“And I look a lot like my dad.”

“How did Yang react?”

He shrugged. “She’s way better with her than I am. She wants to be involved, so I guess I’m lucky to have her.”

“You bet you are.” Emerald sighed, looking down at her feet. “You better not screw that one up.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

He smirked and nudged her with his elbow. “You’ll love her.”

“I don’t really like children that much.”

“Me neither, but she’s kinda cute.

“Softie.” She shook her head for a moment, but she almost smiled, and with her that meant something. “I’ll see if Tai needs help with the dining table, make sure she washed her hand before we eat.”

He smiled and watched her leave before he turned around and walked down the stairs to the garden. Effie looked up, the look in her eyes suspicious. “Who is that?” she asked.

“Emerald. My best friend.” He sat down next to her. “You don’t really like having too many strangers around, do you?”

“No.”

He nodded. It reminded him of himself, more than he was comfortable with. “When Yang dragged me along for the first time for one of her family Sundays everyone was here. Her whole family, including her uncle. And they all didn’t like me.”

“Why didn’t they like you?”

He shrugged. “They hadn’t realised how awesome I am yet. But they all really like you.”

“But they don’t even know me.”

“You’re a child. You’re cute. People love cute children. Use that while it lasts.”

“What if I don’t like them?”

He ruffled her hair. “Then I’ll take you to the zoo every Sunday. Come on, wash your hands before we eat. Dinner is almost ready.”

 

* * *

 

With three people Effie had never met before and Ruby and Taiyang who she had only met a couple of times she fell unusually quiet during dinner. Mercury was glad that at least no one tried to engage her into a conversation she didn’t want. It was weird to feel that protective of anyone, he had only ever felt a glimpse of that feeling around Emerald.

After two rounds of video games with Ruby and him, Effie got tired. Yang was sitting on the couch with Blake and for some reason that was safe enough for her to approach them, resting her head in Yang’s lap and letting her pet her head. Mercury had a feeling she would like Blake a lot.

Maybe this whole family thing would be good for her.

“You know, I’ve thought about it,” Emerald said. She sat down next to him, a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. “First, I’m almost proud you’re not a complete idiot and let Yang help you with this. Including her into this whole family is probably a good thing for her. You could have fucked up badly and now you’re probably only gonna fuck up a bit.”

“What a compliment.”

“Also I can maybe babysit on Saturdays and Tuesdays, but never on Fridays. Get someone else for that. And stop smirking.” She pinched his ribs and then leaned her head against his shoulder. “I missed you,” she whispered.

He chuckled. “Don’t get sentimental in front of your hot chocolate.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I think she’s gonna try to steal your girlfriend.”

“Maybe I’ll share with her.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

Mercury didn’t have a chance against Yang and Effie, not when it came to the colours they picked for the walls in their new apartment. He watched the paint dry and already knew he would grow sick of the orange very soon. No, actually he already was sick of it. Originally Yang had wanted dark red bedroom walls too, but Mercury had told her it reminded him too much of a brothel. He had made it up, the only brother he had ever been in had had some pretty awful floral wallpaper and made him seriously question how anyone could get off in there. There totally had been a discussion about both their experiences with brothels. His story had made her give in and settle on a light purple that Yang had either called lilac or lavender, he wasn’t sure anymore.

“I like it,” Yang said.

“Well I hope you do, because I feel like I’m drowning in a bottle of orange juice.”

“Mercury, you literally lived with a Family Guy poster on your bedroom wall for two years because you were too lazy to take it off, and you hate that show. You don’t care what your apartment looks like.”

“It’s not like I hate it, I just hate it when I have to watch it because it isn’t funny.”

“I had to stare into that stupid baby’s face while having sex with you a little too often.”

“Then why didn’t you take it off earlier?” He laughed, closing the bucket with paint.

“I thought you liked the show and never asked so I didn’t have to tell you how stupid I think it is.”

“You know when I have sex with you I only look into your pretty eyes.”

“You’re trying to be romantic here, but one time we literally had sex in the living room because you wanted to keep watching that stupid baking show.”

“Nothing turns me on like cake batter and fondant.”

“Go and finish painting the bedroom, I want to be done when Ruby drops off Effie.” She smirked anyway, starting to remove the tape from the doorframe they had used to not paint over. He kissed her cheek, his hand on her butt, and let her pull him into a long kiss before she playfully shoved him away again, smiling.

 

* * *

 

Moving was so much more exhausting than Yang had remembered. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was getting old or because they owned twice as many things now, but when she had hugged everyone goodbye and they were done building Effie’s bed Yang collapsed on the couch and felt like she would never move again.

“I can’t find my pyjamas!” Effie walked into the living room, still in her bathrobe.

“I put one pair into my backpack, it’s in the bedroom. Did Mercury help you blow dry your hair?”

“He said it’s dry.”

She gave her a thumbs up. That was all she managed to do right now. Effie walked off to the bedroom and Yang closed her eyes.

“Tired?” She heard Mercury’s footsteps getting closer, then his lips on her temple when he kneeled down next to the couch.

“Guess.” She wrapped her arm around his neck to pull him closer. “I don’t want to build the bed tonight. Can we do that tomorrow?”

“I already put your mattress on the floor.”

“Awesome. I need a shower.” She sat up. “And then I will go to bed and sleep for twelve hours until I forget we still have to unpack everything tomorrow.”

“You’re going dress shopping with Blake tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She groaned. “Okay, then I really need to go to bed now.”

“If you take Effie with you I can start unpacking with Em.”

“Tell her I’ll pick the most amazing wedding dress for Blake in turn.”

“She’s head over heels for Blake no matter what she’s wearing.”

“Fair enough.” She pecked his cheek. “I’ll go take a shower, can you take Effie to bed?”

“Give it an hour and she’ll crawl into our bed anyway.” He got up. “Good you’ve bought a big one.”

 

* * *

 

“You look beautiful, darling.” Kali took her phone out to snap a picture.

“Mum, you said that about every dress.” Blake turned in front of the mirror. What she wore could best be described as a princess dress, a mountain of tulle and silk. Yang could already see that she didn’t like it. “I don’t think it’s really… me.”

“I don’t get why people have to get married in white.” Effie briefly looked up from her colouring book. “I won’t get married in white when I’m grown up.

Ruby nodded. “Me neither.”

“It doesn’t really fit the theme we’re going for,” Weiss said. “Maybe try one of the short dresses.”

“I thought this is a winter wedding.” Ilia took the bottle of champagne to refill her glass.

“She can wear tights.”

“It’s still gonna be cold.”

“The barn has central heating, they promised we could turn it into a sauna if we wanted to. If you had been there you’d know that.”

“Sorry I have a job.”

Yang took Weiss’ glass and held it, letting Ilia refill it. “Stop arguing.” She gave the glass back to Weiss and got up. “Come on, Blake, we’ll try on the other one.”

The dressing room was big and comfortable. “You know you didn’t actually have to come and help me?” Blake asked, the bridal consultant already helping Blake out the drapery. She had introduced herself as Coco Adel, the best choice to find a dress that actually didn’t look ugly, and so far she hadn’t done an awful job.

“Yeah, but if I’m here you can tell your mum I told you to try on the other dress, so you can skip the ones you don’t like without feeling like you’re making her sad.” Yang went through the dresses they had picked before, all hanging on the wall. “I think this is the one Weiss meant.”

“That one would look adorable on you,” Coco said. “It’s one of my favourites.”

“Maybe a short dress isn’t the best idea,” Blake said when Coco helped her into the dress. “It might look awkward on me.”

“Everything looks amazing on you, Blakey.” Yang smiled at her. The dress was short and lacey with long sleeves. “But this one looks a bit more amazing on you than everything else.”

Blake looked at herself in the mirror. “I… I think I like it.”

“Do you want to show it to the others?”

“Yes. Do you think they’ll like it? Do you think Emmy will like it?”

“Your mum will say it’s a bit simple, but you won’t be happy in a dress that she picked. Ilia will say it’s pretty as she did with all the other dresses, she probably can’t even tell the difference, and Weiss will love it because she picked it. Em loves you in anything, so don’t worry about that.”

“I just don’t want her to see me and be disappointed.”

“Blake, she wouldn’t be disappointed if you were wearing her old pyjamas.”

Blake took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s show it to the others.”

Yang could see that Kali didn’t like the dress as much as the others, but she probably also saw the expression on Blake’s face, so she smiled and said: “It’s lovely.”

“I think that’s your dress,” Ilia said. “It’s the first one that makes you smile like that.”

Blake brushed and turned in front of the mirror as if she was finding a flaw, something that proved her right that this dress was too good to be true. “I think that’s the one,” she said eventually.

Yang grinned. “Please get out of that dress before I actually start to cry.”

 

* * *

 

“That orange is awful.” Emerald sat down on the sofa that had way too many colours and opened another box. “Did Yang really pick that?”

“Yang and Effie love it. They say it reminds them of a warm summer evening.”

Emerald shook her head and started to unwrap plates, throwing crumpled newspapers on the floor and stacking the plates on the coffee table. “They made you soft.”

“You just have to consider what I get in return. Living with this awful colour in exchange for sex and someone cooking meals for me from time to time isn’t that much of an awful deal.” He put the last comics into the bookshelf. The ones he had considered Effie-safe at the bottom, the others at the top out of reach.

“Softie, as I said.”

He smirked. “Come on, as if it’s any different with you and Blake.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. Yang deserves to pick the colour of every wall you’ll ever live in for putting up with you and now your daughter as well.”

“Effie is a sweetheart.”

Emerald shrugged. “She didn’t seem too happy to see us when I met her.”

“All those strangers were a bit intimidating for her. If you want we can take her to the zoo together. You can get to know her better, Yang can have the apartment for herself for a day, a win-win.” He didn’t dare to look at her.

“Yeah, sure. If you insist.”

“You’ll love her.” He turned around and sat down next to her to help her with her plates. “You know, it’s not as bad as I thought. I haven’t done this whole dad thing for too long, but it’s not that hard to be nice at your kid and not try to smash her skull with a baseball bat.”

She stopped for a moment. “Merc, you’re…”

“I know.” He didn’t look at her, unwrapping the plates slowly because he was scared to run out of things to do with his hands. “She’s a bit like me when I was a child.”

“In which way?”

“You know the whole thing about not liking to be around too many strangers. She’s not shy, but she likes to be alone. Being scared in the dark. Cautious about what people think about her.” He shrugged. “Before my dad screwed me over. I don’t know what Cinder was like, but she also got a bit from me.”

“She got your eyes after all,” Emerald said. “We’ll raise her good.”

He bit his lip. “Yeah, we will.”

 

* * *

 

None of them really wanted to sit in a café, so they got cake and coffee from a small bakery and sat down in the park. Only Kali went home early. Effie tried to feed the ducks with grass because Ilia had explained to her that feeding them with bread was actually really not good for them, and the ducks, clearly used to being fed bread, fell for it long enough to entertain her.

“She’s cute,” Weiss said. “Can’t believe Mercury made something that cute.”

“I never thought he’d suddenly get me a niece who’s old enough to do all the fun things together.” Ruby took another cupcake. “We should have bought more of these. Let’s leave one for Effie in case she wants another.”

“She’d make a nice flower girl,” Blake said.

Yang looked at her. “Do you think Em would want that?”

Blake shrugged. “She’s already warming up to her. Effie is the closest thing she’ll ever get to a niece. I was never fond of the idea of letting the triplets do the job, they’re way too young.”

“As long as she doesn’t have to wear white. I don’t think she’d be down for that.”

“Didn’t we settle on lilac for the bridesmaids?” Ilia asked. “She could wear lilac too.”

“She’d accept that as a compromise.” Yang looked at Effie. She was picking flowers near the pond now, her black ponytail whipping up and down when she moved. “If Emerald, agrees I will ask her. I think she’d like to be involved in the wedding, she was eager to come along today, even if she didn’t show it.”

“You’re such a mum,” Ruby said. “I always knew that role would suit you.”

“I never thought I’d ever have kids.”

“Emerald and I have talked about it.” Blake sipped on her tea. “I mean it’s nothing concrete yet. We’re just considering it, for some point in the future.”

“Wow,” Weiss said. “Now I feel old.”

“And I thought you already had a ten year plan that involved three kids, including their names.” Ilia grinned when Weiss almost looked offended. “Hey, I don’t want to hurry with that either.” She leaned closer to kiss her cheek.

“I might have some names in mind, but no intend to rush those things.”

Effie almost tripped when she ran back to them and Yang could feel her heart skip a beat. She sat down next to Blake, showing her the flowers in her hands. “Can you braid them for me?”

“Sure.” Blake put down her tea and took the flowers from her to spread them in her lap. “Like a flower crown?”

“Yes.”

It was hard to overlook that Effie loved Blake. She was quiet around her, but more in an awestruck way than anything else. Yang smiled. “Do you want another cupcake, Effie?”

“Yes!”

“Wait.” Weiss reached for her bag. “You should sanitise your hands first after playing with the ducks for so long. Here, that one smells like melon.”

“Wait a bit until it dries,” Ruby said when Effie rubbed the sanitiser into her hands. “You don’t want your cupcake to taste like that.”

“How often did that happen to you?” Blake asked.

Ruby looked away. “Once or twice.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Seems you’re still busy unpacking.” Amber sipped on her tea, looking around in Effie’s room.

“Yeah, but we’re trying to get it all done as soon as we can,” Yang said.

“Oh, don’t worry. It looks way better than after I moved. The colour is… interesting though.”

“She picked it, and she loves it. I hope it lasts because this will be a pain in the ass to paint over.”

“Did you find a solution for her cat?”

“He lived with us for a while. Effie wasn’t doing well, so Merc finally gave in.” Yang leaned against the wall. “He’s living with my sister at the moment, because of the move. We’ll get him once we’re done unpacking everything. My best friend has three cats, she said it’s better that way.” Yang shrugged, running her hands over some of the comics in Effie’s bookshelf. She had never really gotten into them, but at least it was something Mercury and Effie could bond over. “There’s a school right around the corner where she can start after the summer break.”

“Seems like you’ve found your routine.”  

Yang looked up. “You mean she can stay with us?”

“Oh, that wasn’t even really a question. I’m sorry if I gave you a wrong impression. Mercury is her father after all, so I wouldn’t take her away from you without a really good reason. Right now I’m rather here to see if you need any help adjusting to the situation.” Amber smiled at her. “She seems happy.”

“Well, I hope she is.” Yang shrugged. “Merc had it harder bonding with her than I did. They’re getting there, but I think moving in together helped her a bit, without me hopping between apartments and all. Do you want another cup of tea?”

Amber nodded. “Yeah,” she said, and Yang wasn’t quite sure which part she meant.

Effie sat on the living room floor and read one of her books, eyeing them suspiciously when they came back and sat down next to Mercury on the sofa. She always asked Mercury to read his comics to her, but with Yang she always wanted to read her own books. She knew this one by heart, but she still loved it when Yang read it to her. Yang had already thought about getting her new books to read, but that was something that would be way more fun for her and Blake.

“Your room is very pretty,” Amber said. “I like the fairy lights.”

“Yang got me more because my new room is bigger than my old one.”

“I’m sure Dante will love it.”

“We can go get him next week, can we?”

“If the apartment is ready,” Yang said. “You know what Blake said, if we’re still unpacking and moving furniture around that might upset him.”

“I’m glad you both found a home here,” Amber said, and Effie’s face lightened up a little.

“We’re already making plans for her birthday,” Yang said. “We’re not sure what we’re gonna do yet though. Maybe we’ll go to the zoo.”

“Sounds lovely.”

It was long after Amber had left that Effie tiptoed into the bedroom like she liked to do, watching Yang fold clothes for a moment before she sat down on the bed. “She wasn’t here to send me back, was she?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why was she here?”

“Just to make sure everything is alright.” Yang put the sweater she had been folding into the closet and sat down next to her. “They’re glad if you have a place to stay and they don’t have to take care of you anymore to be honest.”

“I want to invite Blake to my birthday.”

“Can Emerald come too?” Yang smirked and reached for Effie, but before she could tickle her she escaped to the other side of the bed.

“Not sure yet. But I want Blake to come.”

“I’ll make sure she saves the date.”

 

* * *

 

“Merc, they totally look like elephant unicorns.” Emerald rolled her eyes and rested her elbows on the fence to the enclosure. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t.” Effie nodded and took another bite of her crêpe.

“The horn is on its nose.” He shook his head. He had hoped Emerald would bond with Effie, but he hadn’t expected both of them to side against him so quickly.

“Mercury likes the otter ducks,” Effie said. “What’s your favourite animal?”

“I like cats. They do what they want, I admire that.”

“I have a cat. He lives with Ruby right now, but we’ll go get him very soon.”

“I have three cats. You should come over and meet them sometime.”

“Yes!” Effie almost dropped her crêpe out of excitement and Mercury already saw a tragedy coming he wasn’t prepared for, but Emerald quickly caught it. “They have lions here,” Effie said. “They’re a bit boring because they sleep all the time, but I want to show you the lions.”

Effie wanted to show Emerald all the animals she liked, including the platypus. Emerald seemed to have a much easier time talking to her than Mercury, giving her favourite animals names and telling her things about them she had either made up or read on the signs. When they left the zoo she got tired and grumpy, so Mercury carried her on his back to prevent a temper tantrum.

She was asleep when they arrived home, so he brought her to bed, Emerald helping him to take her shoes off and tuck her into the sheets.

“So Roman raised her?” Emerald asked when she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Kinda. She loves him.” He turned on the coffee machine. “Yang arranged a play date for Saturday. She says it’s good if we don’t cut her off from the people she’s known her entire life.”

“You’re gonna leave her alone with Roman?”

“I mean he knows her better than I do. He’s an asshole, but he was always more responsible than Cinder, and Effie turned out alright.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She sighed. “She’s cute. I don’t like children, but I admit that this one’s not that bad.”

He smiled and took two cups out of the kitchen cabinet. “Yeah, she’s alright.”

“Softie. Don’t forget the milk.”

He heard her footsteps before Effie appeared in the kitchen door. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Talking and drinking coffee. Do you want a hot chocolate?”

“Yeah.” Effie walked through the kitchen and Emerald helped her climb on her lap.

Emerald wrapped her arms around Effie. “Are you hungry? It’s still a while until dinner, I can peel an orange for you if you want.”

Mercury had known that Emerald and Effie would get along just fine.


	13. Chapter 13

“You’re pregnant.”

“No.” The answer came immediately, without even thinking about it. “Look again.”

“It’s right here on the ultrasound.” The doctor pointed at the monitor. Everything Yang could see were shades of black and white. “Right here.”

“That’s just a black spot. I’m not even late with my period.”

“Because it’s quite early. I’d say around four weeks. I can’t get a heartbeat yet, but that’s completely normal at this state.”

She took a deep breath. A pregnancy was the last thing she needed now. “I’m on birth control.”

“That’s never a hundred percent safe. Some antibiotics can influence it for example, but I had women who were sure they had done everything right and still ended up being pregnant.” The doctor looked at her. She was an older woman with grey hair and red glasses. “I’ll give you a brochure and an appointment in eight weeks.”

Yang felt like reality had taken a break when she left the building. A trance she didn’t want to wake up from. It was a warm day and when she knocked on the door of Blake’s office she wasn’t sure if what she felt was euphoria or the desperate need to throw up.

“I’m not going to buy you a pregnancy test.” Blake leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. Between them was the brochure, information she didn’t want to read with cartoonish storks in between.

“You know I would buy you one if you ever needed it. It’s not my fault you’re not marrying someone with a dick.”

“Yes, but there is absolutely no point. If the doctor said you’re pregnant the test won’t prove her wrong.”

“I just went there because I thought I had a stomach flu. Blake, we already got a child not even two months ago, if I have another one now she’ll just think we want to replace her.”

“She won’t think that.”

“I need to get an abortion.”

“There’s still plenty of time, Yang. You don’t have to make a decision right away.”

“I have no time at all! I should have went to the supermarket long ago, and when I’m home I still need to bake a cake and wrap presents, tomorrow –“

“Yang, calm down.” Blake got up and sat down next to Yang on the sofa. “We’ll figure this out, okay? I have no more clients today, I can help you with the cake if you want.”

“You’re the best.” She groaned and leaned her head against Blake’s shoulder. “You know, I was ready to take in one of Merc’s kids, but no one talked about a second.”

 

* * *

 

As long as you couldn’t see anything she wasn’t really pregnant anyway. She stared at the diapers in front of her. It seemed like all of a sudden the supermarket was full of baby stuff, all of it screaming at her. She shook her head and pushed the trolley down the aisle.

As long as she wasn’t going to have the child she wasn’t really pregnant anyway.

“I can’t believe you don’t have a recipe,” Blake said.

“It sounds pretty stupid if you say it like that, yeah.” Yang sighed. “Okay, maybe we can buy a cake. I mean kids love that stuff more than they value home baked cakes anyway.”

“Weiss said she’d bring cupcakes, so one might be enough. Maybe two if they’re small. You know, Weiss will probably bring way too many cupcakes anyway, so one cake will do. The only important thing is that Effie gets enough anyway.”

“We also need candles. Nothing pink, she hates that.”

“I’ll go get the candles.”

Yang nodded and looked at the list on her phone. Pyrrha had helped her with it, because she actually had no idea what to get for a kid’s birthday party. Effie didn’t have any friends her age, so it would be way less of a chaos than the triplet’s birthday party in January, Jaune had never managed to get the stains out of the sofa again.

She picked a chocolate cake covered in colourful sprinkles. She threw it into her trolley along with cream puffs because she hadn’t had them in ages and suddenly craved them. She got all the sugary drinks kids always wanted even though they weren’t good for them before she went searching for Blake.

Of course she ended up in the baby aisle again.

The worst thing was that the babies did look cute. She knew that whatever was inside of her wasn’t a baby yet, just a clump of cells, and that the chance of it not even making it to the twelve week appointment was relatively high. The diapers should have reminded her that this was a really bad idea, but the babies really did look cute. She took a deep breath and moved on to search for Blake.

“I want to go out,” she said when she found her. “I want to get drunk.”

“You know I’d be a bad friend if I let you.” Blake threw a pack of candles into the trolley. They were colourful like the sprinkles. “Emmy spent hours knitting her a birthday present by the way. It’s June, but she felt like making something for her instead of just buying it.”

“She’s adorable with her.”

“Yeah, she is.” Blake smiled. “She said she’s not that fond of children, but Effie made her think that maybe there are exceptions.”

“So you’re going to…”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “We’re thinking about it.”

It felt wrong to be happy for her.

 

* * *

 

Ruby had promised to get Effie tired and Yang was sure she had been running through the park with her all day long, but at night Effie was still almost too excited to go to bed. Yang read one of the books she had borrowed from Blake to her with her head resting on her stomach until she finally fell asleep and she carefully got up.

“You look tired,” Mercury said when she sat down on the couch next to him. He was still working, a documentary about dolphins running on TV in the background while he typed on his laptop. He never liked working in silence.

“It’s been a busy day.” She leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment.

“Anything happened?”

“No.” She bit her lip. She knew she had to tell him at some point, but there was no point in doing it tonight. She didn’t want to ruin Effie’s birthday by dragging both their moods down. Mercury was bad at hiding his emotions. “You know, I’m really tired. I’ll probably go to bed, I don’t want to be too tired tomorrow.”

“Probably a good idea.” He looked up from his laptop. “I’ll just rely on coffee and willpower.”

“She’ll chase you through the garden all day long, you know that, right?” She leaned up to kiss him. “Don’t stay up too long. Good night.”

She was glad he didn’t go to bed with her because she still cried when she was trying to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

“Happy birthday!”

Effie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, but she grinned and leaned her head against Mercury’s shoulder. He carried her into the living room and Effie’s gaze was locked on the dinner table, candles and presents that Yang had wrapped together with Blake yesterday, locking themselves in the bedroom while he watched a movie with Effie. 

Unwrapping gifts was cute to watch. She was excited about all the toys and plushies, destroying an hour’s work in minutes. Mercury pretended to be excited about the cat leggings she showed him. It felt weird to watch her like that, when he had been six years old he hadn’t even known his own birthday, only that it was something from movies that never happened to him.

Ironically, the first who had ever asked about his birthday was Cinder.

 

* * *

 

“I hope she doesn’t grow out of that cat phase too soon.” Yang put the last piece of wrapping paper into the bin. Only inviting adult friends to Effie’s birthday was pretty advantageous, since everyone got her a lot of presents. They had thought about inviting Jaune, Pyrrha and the triplets, but Effie probably wouldn’t have too much fun with three four year olds and two adults she didn’t know. Yang had learned that they would better introduce Effie to one of their friends at a time.

“Emerald is just glad she finally found someone who will wear the cat eye hats she’s knitting.” Blake arranged the presents on the coffee table so it didn’t look like a complete mess. She lowered her voice. “Did you talk to Mercury?”

Yang shook her head, looking at one of the comics Ruby had gotten Effie. “I didn’t want him to be more antisocial and grumpy than he already is and ruin Effie’s birthday.”

Blake didn’t say anything, but her gaze was judgmental enough. “I’ll go and treat myself to another cupcake.”

Effie was outside in the garden, her, Ruby and Roman trying to teach Zwei to play dead. The other adults still sat around the table on the porch, except for Weiss and Ilia, who were probably making out in the kitchen. Yang sat down next to Mercury and took another cupcake. Weiss really had made way too many, but they were delicious.

“How many of those did you have?” Mercury asked.

“Not enough.”

“You have a child now,” Emerald said. “You have no idea how unattractive that makes you on the single market. She can gain as much weight as she wants.”

“I’d still be the hottest shit he ever had.” She tried to smile about it, but it was hard knowing that if she didn’t do anything about it she would soon turn into a ginormous whale.

“Not wrong.” Mercury shrugged and leaned back, ignoring the glares Taiyang and Qrow gave him from the other end of the table.

The doorbell rang and Yang used it as an excuse to get up. “I’ll be right back,” she said, taking another bite from her cupcake when she went back inside.

Blake had already opened the door. “Hey, Winter,” Yang said, trying not to spread crumbs all over the floor.

“I’m just here to bring Weiss her phone. She took mine when she left this morning.” Winter was dressed in what Yang would consider formal, and she would consider casual: a white blouse with a bow, black chino pants and heels.

“She’s in the kitchen. Do you want to come inside and have a piece of cake? It’s Effie’s birthday.”

“I suppose it would be impolite to say no.” She gave her a brief smile and stepped inside. “Is Ilia here too?”

“Ili and Weiss are in the kitchen. Last door to the left. We’re outside on the porch if you want to join us.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Yang took another bite of her cupcake. “You look upset,” Blake said.

“No, I’m not. I’m perfectly fine.” She forced herself to smile. “Wanna join us outside?”

Blake sighed. “Sure.”

“Who was it?” Taiyang asked.

“Winter. She’s here to bring Weiss her phone.” Yang stuffed the rest of her cupcake into her mouth. Probably also to avoid snapping at Qrow for rolling his eyes so hard she was almost scared they would jump out of his head.

“Want another piece of cake?” Mercury asked, smirking at her.

“This is not the time to mock me,” she mumbled.

He raised his eyebrows, looking genuinely concerned for a moment. “Just offering.”

“Actually I think we ran out of coffee, I’ll go tell Weiss to make more.” Yang got up and went inside before anyone could protest. She heard footsteps behind her and walked upstairs, hoping that no one would bother her there. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub and burying her face in her hands.

It knocked on the door. Yang sighed and looked up. “Blake, I just want to –“

“It’s me.”

She took a deep breath. Mercury of all people. “What do you want?”

“Come on. Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you. Go away.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m just not in a good mood, okay? I’m sorry.”

“Just open the door and tell me what’s wrong.”

She forced herself to take deep breaths, staring at the tiles of the floor that she had grown up with. Maybe this was the moment where she had to admit to herself that running away from her problems and pretending everything was okay didn’t always work.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she got up. Mercury was still there and maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her. He raised his eyebrows, which was as close as he would get to looking concerned. She stepped aside to let him in and closed the door behind him.

“You look horrible,” he said eventually.

She shrugged. She didn’t know what to say, so she just made a step forward and leaned against him, burying her head in his chest and letting him wrap his arms around her. Everything about him felt so familiar, enough to calm her down a bit.

“I’m not mad at you,” she mumbled.

“What’s wrong then?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He took a deep breath. “Shit.”

“I’m probably not going to have it anyway.” She pulled away from him. “You know, I should probably go and take care of that coffee I promised them before they think something is wrong.” She was out of the door before he could stop her.

“Yang, wait!” He grabbed her by the wrist and she stopped. “Don’t just drop that bomb on me and walk away.”

“I didn’t even want to tell you today, but you kept asking, I just…” She bit her lip. “Okay, let’s go to my room.”

They sat down on her bed. It felt weird to be here, where she had grown up, discussing her pregnancy. It felt too adult for this room.

“When did you find out?”

“Yesterday. I went to the doctor because of my stomach flu.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “It’s still early, so… I mean right now it doesn’t even have a heartbeat yet. I could just get rid of it, crisis avoided.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Come on, it’s just not the right time for it. We’ve never talked about children, I’m not sure if I even want children, and we took in your daughter not even two months ago. She’ll just think we want to replace her.”

“Yang, no. Don’t do that because of her.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not fair.” He stared at his hands, peeling off the skin around his nails and Yang felt like stopping him, taking his hands in hers. “I never wanted kids, but I can’t make you take care of my child and in turn you can’t have yours.”

“It’s not like… you can’t make me have an abortion. If I really wanted it I would have it.”

“I’m not telling you to have it, but don’t make that decision based on Effie. We’d manage, even with the new situation. I don’t know, I guess we’d have to make it work. But I don’t want you to make that choice based on how I screwed up six years ago and fathered a child.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. I won’t do it because of her.”

“Just think this through, okay? You always make abrupt decisions, and you shouldn’t rush this one. If it’s still early then there’s still time.” He sucked the blood from his thumb.

“You need to stop doing that with your fingers, I told you to use my hand lotion more often.”

“That’s not going to help.”

“You won’t know until you try.”

He gave her a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. She robbed forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her head against his back. He stroked the back of her hand. “So now we’re just going downstairs, and pretending that nothing happened?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to wait until tomorrow.” She kissed his neck. “Let’s go downstairs before I start to cry or some shit like that.”

He squeezed her hand for a moment before they got up. She felt like yelling at someone, but one weight was lifted off her chest. One person she didn’t have to hide it from anymore.

Downstairs Effie had either managed to teach Zwei to play dead or given up. She was sitting on the living room floor with Qrow, trying to build one of the lego sets she had gotten from Taiyang, Ruby and Taiyang sitting on the couch and trying to give them advice. Yang ruffled her hair as she walked by.  

Roman was sitting at the table now, talking with Winter of all people. Yang wasn’t sure what to think of it as she sat down next to Blake, avoiding to look at her. “More coffee?” Weiss asked.

“Do you still have tea?” Yang already felt way too nervous to still consider caffeine a good idea.

“Not with that cup,” Blake said. “You’ve already had coffee in that one. I’ll go make you a cup, you don’t like the one we’ve made.”

“You’re a gem.”

“I want coffee,” Mercury said.

Effie came running outside, almost knocking Yang over when she tried to climb on her lap. “Ruby said Qrow is stupid because he doesn’t read instructions.”

Yang pulled her on her lap and pulled the plate with the cupcakes closer when Effie tried to reach for them. “And did you manage to get it done without them?”

“It doesn’t look like it does on the picture. But Ruby said she’d fix it.” She took one of the strawberry cupcakes, despite them being pink. “Roman said there are dog training videos on the internet and that we can watch them with Zwei.”

“I’m sure that will work out.”

“Yang, I need to show you the lego house.”

“Sure, Kitty. But eat your cupcake first.”

“I can eat it inside.” She got up. Mercury actually managed to smirk at her when she followed her inside. For a moment she almost felt normal.


	14. Chapter 14

“Em, it’s fine.” Yang rubbed up and down her arms. “Deep breaths, okay? It’s going to be fine.”

“Fuck.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “This hasn’t happened since…”

“Do you want me to call Blake?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want her to know I had a panic attack while trying on wedding dresses.”

“You look beautiful in that dress.”

“Yeah, that’s the issue.” She wiped the tears from her face. “It’s… too perfect. Feels like I can’t trust it, like something has to go wrong to ruin it.”

“Nothing is going to happen. Weiss and I won’t let anything ruin this wedding, we’ve worked too hard for it.”

“Yeah.” Emerald took a deep breath before she looked at her. “I don’t know, can you just tell the others I’m trying on more dresses so they don’t think something is off when I stay in here for a moment?”

“Sure.” Yang took some make up wipes out of her bag. “Want me to tell Coco to come back inside?”

“Yeah. I mean trying on more dresses can’t hurt.”

“I’m right there outside if you need anything.”

Emerald nodded. “God, I feel so stupid.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve helped Blake through the whole nervousness of your first date, I am an expert in this.”

“Thank you. Really.”

She smiled at her. “The dress really looks good on you.”

Her smile lasted until she had closed the dressing room door behind her. Ilia and Weiss were arguing again, or flirting, it was always difficult to tell the difference with them. She sat down next to them on the white sofa that still belonged into the 80s, Ruby sipping on her orange juice and looking at her.

“Sure you want to leave the drinking to them today?” she asked.

“Yeah. I might have to drive tonight if we really end up getting Effie’s cat.” It was an excuse, and she wasn’t even sure why. She didn’t want this child anyway, so why was she avoiding alcohol?

“Did she like the dress?” Ilia asked, taking Weiss’ glass to sip on her champagne.

“Yes, but she still wants to try some alternatives. Can’t make up her mind, but it’s a tough choice.”

“I liked the dress.” Weiss stole back her glass. “Also it was the same shade of white as Blake’s, that’s super important.”

“I’m scared for next week when we’ll go shopping for bridesmaid dresses. That’s going to be tough.” Ilia leaned her head against Weiss’ shoulder.

“Actually I have to call dad because of something.” Yang got up. “I’ll be right back.”

The toilet was small and smelled like some awfully sweet room scent only old people used. Yang closed the toilet lid and sat down, typing Mercury’s number into her phone.

“Did anything happen?” was the first thing he said.

“No. Not really. Are you busy?”

“No. Aren’t you with Em right now?”

“Yeah. Hiding on the toilet.” She took a deep breath, staring at the brown bathroom tiles on the wall. “You know I’ve thought about something.”

“Want me to ask? Because I won’t, just say it already.”

“You know, I did the math. If I was keeping the baby I would be super pregnant by the time Emerald and Blake get married. Like super pregnant. I wouldn’t be a bridesmaid but a big purple whale. Also we’d have to know soon because I’d need my bridesmaid dress in like XXXL. You know, it has to fit two people after all.”

“But if you looked bad on any pictures you could just blame the pregnancy.”

“People would have to bring me food and drinks because I could get away without moving all night long.”

“Or you have the child on the dancefloor and ruin their wedding.”

“I couldn’t drink, and maybe my feet would be too swollen to dance, so I’d end up sitting there all on my own while everyone else is having fun.”

“You’d make me sit there with you.”

“Yeah, I would.” She took a deep breath. “I mean we still have the spare room.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“I’m just talking nonsense right now, but you know, maybe it’s to make sure I don’t make that choice for the wrong reasons. You’re probably right, I shouldn’t do it just because of Effie or because of my job or whatever, but because I really don’t want this baby right now. Like we technically could manage I guess.”

“It’s not like Effie is too much to handle at the moment. Maybe she’d like to have a sibling. You liked having a sibling, didn’t you?”

“If they get along. Weiss hates her brother.”

“Nah, this baby would be super cute. Has my genes after all.”

“You know, it’s too early to tell whether it’s a boy or a girl yet. But it’s weird because it definitely is one of those things. Like a gift you haven’t unwrapped yet, and there is something inside, but you don’t know what it is yet. Does that make any sense?”

“You’re curious.”

“A bit. But that shouldn’t change my mind, I mean technically I’m bleeding out a potential child every month. This isn’t very different.”

“If you say so.”

“It would probably be best to do it in two weeks, then work isn’t that busy and I can afford to call in sick.” She sighed. “You know, I could have talked about all that with you later tonight, but I just wanted to hear your voice. We’re really that pathetic now, aren’t we?”

“I’m hot shit after all.” She could hear him smirk. “Make sure Em doesn’t look ugly.”

“She looks amazing in the dress she picked. Blake will have a gay meltdown when she sees her.”

“I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yeah. Bye.” She hung up and kept staring at the ugly tiles for a moment, trying not to smile. She had fallen in love with the biggest douche she had found, but somehow they would also find a way to handle this situation.

 

* * *

 

He sat back down next to Blake. The park was full of children and dogs, Effie still sitting next to the pond and trying to talk to the ducks. Yang had let her choose between going dress shopping with Emerald and her or spending the day with Mercury and Blake, and obviously it had been a lost case for Emerald. “Is something wrong with Emmy?” Blake asked.

“No, she wanted to talk about the baby.”

Blake sighed. “At least she talks about it. Did she mention the abortion?”

“Yep.” He stole a handful of nuts from her bag. “She’s so not going to have that abortion.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.”

“She’ll probably be eight months pregnant, already painging the nursery and still talk about having that abortion. She’s as stubborn as that.”

“She can’t go on like that. I’d support her if she really wanted to have that abortion, but she always throws herself into those quick solutions and I just know she would regret it.”

“Just get her a bridesmaid dress that will still fit when she’s super pregnant.”

“Two kids in a year. Not bad, huh?” She smirked.

“If Effie wasn’t that cute I’d say if I had known that I would have gotten my tubes tied or something. But I got around the annoying years with one child, so I probably can’t complain.”

“You know, Emmy is right when she says Effie made you soft.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

She laughed. Effie came running back to them, dropping flowers into Blake’s lap. “Can you braid  them for me?”

“Sure.” Blake moved to the side so Effie could sit down on the bench between them. “Did you have fun playing with the ducks?”

“We weren’t really playing. I told them not to eat bread because it makes them sick.”

“I’m sure they got the message,” Mercury said and ruffled her hair.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sure he’ll come out eventually,” Mercury said. Seeing Effie that sad awoke feelings inside of him that he neither understood nor liked.  

“What if he doesn’t like it here?”

“He will, but he just has to get used to it,” Yang said. “The place is new for him, everything smells different. Cats smell so much more than humans. Give him some time.”

Effie lied back down on the floor to look under her bed. “What if I just wait here?”

Mercury leaned against the wall. “You still need to brush your teeth. We’ll put his litter box and some water into your room, I’m sure he’ll come out when you’re asleep and you’ll wake up with him exploring the apartment.”

“Okay.” She sat up. “But what if he doesn’t like it here?”

Yang ruffled her hair. “You are here, so of course he’ll like it. Now go get yourself ready for bed, the sooner you sleep the faster he’ll come out.”

Tonight it was Yang’s turn to read a book to her until she fell asleep. It was one thing they had figured out already, Effie had trouble falling asleep when she was on her own. The nightmares still made her crawl into their bed some nights, cuddling up to Yang, her eyes swollen from tears she didn’t want them to see. Yang was hoping that Dante might make it easier for her, but Mercury wasn’t sure how a cat was supposed to help against night terrors. His own had never went away, he had just managed to live with it, between insomnia and cuddling up to Yang, hoping that she wouldn’t wake up.

He was lying on the sofa when Yang finally came out of Effie’s room. She straddled his hips and just dropped herself on top of him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He shoved her hair out of his face and changed the programme to a documentary about some English king.

“Emerald had a meltdown while trying on dresses,” she said. “You know, that’s not even the hard part. Shopping bridesmaid dresses will be a hassle, because we’re all so different. Finding a dress that fits us all almost sounds impossible to me.”

“Especially when you’re nine months pregnant by the time of the wedding.”

“I most likely won’t be pregnant.”

“Sure.” He wrapped his arms around her. The thought of actually going through the whole ordeal of having a child and raising it from early on, when it was still so breakable, seemed more than frightening to him. He didn’t feel like a dad to Effie, he wasn’t even sure what it was supposed to feel like. He liked her, maybe even loved her but it was hard for him to grasp that concept.

“By the way, you are on litter box duty for now.”

“Me? Why?”

“You’re not supposed to do that when you’re pregnant.” She kissed his collarbone, his neck. “Maybe I won’t be pregnant for long, but I will use that excuse.”

“Sure you will.” If he had had a choice he had decided against having a child with Yang, at least right now, but he didn’t even need Emerald to tell him that this was not his choice to make. Yang had already made up her mind, she just hadn’t realised it yet.


	15. Chapter 15

It didn’t take Dante long to be his asshole self again and sleep on every surface in the house that definitely wasn’t supposed to be a cat bed. Mercury hat already given up in getting rid of all the hair everywhere. But not even he could lighten up Effie’s mood this morning.

The schoolyard was full of kids and their parents, running around between tables with kid’s games and homemade cake. Effie was clinging to Yang’s hand. This had sounded like a good idea when Yang had told him about it. A small summer fair so the kids could get to know the school and each other before the year began. Right now he started to see the issues with this plan.

“Do you want a piece of cake?” Yang asked.

“Mummy said she’d homeschool me.”

“This will be fun, trust me. You’ll play with other kids, go on field trips, learn to read…”

“Mummy said I don’t need other kids.”

Yang sighed and looked at Mercury. He shrugged. It wasn’t like he was even surprised Cinder would do something like that. “You don’t need other kids,” he agreed. “I also don’t need Yang, and I still keep her around for some reason.”

Effie gave him an angry glare. “Because you love her.”

“And because playing alone is boring.”

Yang smirked. “Okay, come on. I’ll go get us some cake, and you make some new friends.”

Effie crossed her arms in front of her chest when Yang left them alone. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so sad. “You didn’t tell her you love her,” she said.

“She knows. Come on.”

She stayed close by his side. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do here, socialising had never been his strength. “You can… I don’t know what they’re doing over there, are they throwing rings on sticks?”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Are you new?”

He turned around. A woman with black hair approached him, dressed as if this was a runway and not a schoolyard. “Yeah. Effie will start here this summer.”

“I’m Melanie, the parent’s representative at this school. I can show you around if you want. There is a makeup workshop, maybe you want to give that a try with your mum?”

“My mum is dead,” Effie said. Well, she definitely got that from him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Her smile grew wider. “I know what it’s like, I’m a single mum too. Come on, I’ll show you around and introduce you. Hey!” She waved at two girls with equally dark hair. “My daughter and my niece. Poppy, Maggie, why don’t you go play with your new friend for a while? Show her the flower crown workshop.”

Effie looked at him for a moment, but flower crowns were too tempting after all. She followed the girls and Mercury watched them for a moment before he had figured out where the workshop was. “Are they starting with her as well?”

“Yes, but my oldest is eight. You know, single fathers are a rarity here, but I think it’s amazing you’re taking care of her like that. Not like Arslan who has just dumped her husband, but to be honest, no wonder he ran away from her.” She guided him through the crowd and he wasn’t sure why she thought he cared. “I’ll give you my number, maybe we can set up a playdate sometime. It’s nice to bond with other single parents, you know?” She winked at him.

“Who do you have to kill for a cup of coffee here?”

“Just follow me. Arslan is in charge of the hot beverages today, but as I told you, she’s a total slut. She will try to hit on you. Not that I can blame her, but you don’t want someone who has as many affairs as she has.”

All he wanted right now was coffee and to get rid of her, but he just shrugged. “Unlike you?”

“I have my standards. I feel like we would get along way better than you and her.”

“Are you asking me out?”

Melanie laughed. “Maybe I’m just waiting for you to ask me out.”

They reached the woman who he assumed was Arslan and he left it uncommented. She was standing behind a table they had probably taken from one of the classrooms, cups and coffee in front of her. She didn’t even bother to give Melanie a fake smile. “Coffee?” she asked.

“I would kill for a cup of coffee,” Mercury said.

Melanie laughed. “He’s funny, isn’t he?”

Mercury and Arslan exchanged a glare that showed they both totally didn’t think it was that funny. “Milk? Sugar?” Arslan asked.

“Yes. Both.”

“Arslan!” Yang waved at him. She had a plate of cake in her hand and shoved it into his hands before she pulled Arslan into a tight hug. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in what, ten years?”

“Embarrassing,” Melanie mumbled next to him.

Mercury decided to ignore the chatter and put the cake on the desk, took two cups and filled them with coffee himself. Yang turned around to look at them again. “Arslan and I have met at multiple athletic tournaments. Don’t say you have a kid here too.”

“Sorry,” Melanie said, “who are you again?”

“My girlfriend,” Mercury said and gave Yang the other cup of coffee. The look on Melanie’s face was priceless.

“I have two girls here,” Arslan said. “My youngest starts this summer. Wow, I never expected you to have a child.”

“Stepchild technically. Maybe your daughter will be in Effie’s class. She’s a sweet girl. Where is she anyway?”

“Making flower crowns somewhere. Where is the flower crown action happening?” He looked at Melanie.

“Right next to the bouncing castle.” She looked way less friendly all of a sudden. “I have to go and make sure everything works out with the cake sale,” she said before she turned around and left.

Yang raised her eyebrows as she left. “Did you flirt with her?”

“She wanted to ask me out. I guess single dads are hot shit in the grammar school mum community.” He shrugged.

“School hasn’t even started yet and my idiot boyfriend is already messing with the bitchiest mum he could find.” Yang sipped on her coffee. “Can you believe him?”

“She’s a nightmare,” Arslan said. “But people don’t care half as much about her opinion as she thinks.”

“We should probably see if Effie is doing well. She’s not used to strangers.” Yang took her cup of coffee and the cake. “I hope we can catch up some time, it was so nice seeing you.”

“Yes. Have fun at the fair.”

The flower crown workshop was easy to find. Effie had abandoned Melanie’s kids for a girl who looked exactly like a little version of Arslan, only with dark braided hair and glasses. They were sitting on the floor a bit aside and Mercury quickly claimed a free spot on a bench while Yang briefly talked to them. She left the cake with them and then sat down next to Mercury. “She’s Arslan’s daughter, Alev. See, she’s already found a friend.”

“At least not Melanie’s kids.” He leaned back and sipped on his coffee. “How often do I have to come to these sorts of thing?”

“Be glad Melanie isn’t your girlfriend. Be careful or I’ll leave and you have to take her.” She smirked and he knew she wasn’t mad. He knew that sort of stuff didn’t bother her.

“I’d do it again for that look on her face.”

“She saw me and knew this was a lost battle.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Shit, this is boring. What do parents even do at this sort of events?”

“Shittalking other parents. Are you even allowed to drink coffee?”

“Yes. A bit. I googled it.”

“If you had the child Effie wouldn’t be as scared anymore about you leaving us.”

Yang sighed. “Does she still have that fear?”

“She thinks I don’t tell you I love you often enough.”

“She’s such a cute child. I don’t know, maybe we just tell her we’re secretly married and wait until she’s too old to buy that story.” She sipped on her coffee for a moment. “I mean do you want the child?”

“I think you want the child.”

“I told you I don’t.”

He sighed. “You should talk to Blake about this. She’s the therapist here. But I know when you’re sure about something and I know when you’re not. If you really wanted this abortion you wouldn’t ask for my opinion.”

“But it does matter to me. I don’t want to have this child if you only say you want it because you feel guilty about Effie.”

“I don’t want it right now, but… you know, look at Effie. I’m not unhappy she’s here. I didn’t want a relationship three years ago and here we are. Maybe I just need to be convinced.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“I just don’t want you to regret it. You often beat yourself up over so many things.” He leaned down and kissed her temple. “If it wasn’t for Blake you would have done a lot of things you regret, so talk to her about it, okay?”

“What if I get that whole postnatal depression thing from my mum?”

“Your best friend is literally a psychotherapist, Yang. You’ll be fine.”

She took a deep breath and leaned in closer. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, playing with the strap of her tank top. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Okay, I’ll really think about it.”

“What do you think, how long until we can take Effie and go home?”

“I’ll give Arslan my number so she can have play dates with Alev.” She looked up. “I don’t want to feed your ego but Melanie should kick her own ass for losing you to me five years ago.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t even think I have fingerprints anymore.”

“We’re not even halfway done.” Blake looked at the stack of origami lotus flowers in front of her, and the sheets of paper they still had to fold. It had been Weiss’ idea, one that looked good on paper (Yang would have been proud of that pun), but they had underestimated how much work it was. “So you’ll keep it?”

“No. I will wait for the twelve week ultrasound. I have the appointment anyway, so I’ll go there, see how I feel, and then make a decision. You’re not supposed to tell anyone before that date anyway. Until then I’ll find an excuse around drinking and soft cheese, just in case.”

Blake smirked. She knew that Yang was so not going to have that abortion. “Okay.”

“Go fold another flower you horrible cat lesbian.”

“I got more than you, you useless bi.”

Yang rolled her eyes. “I’ll catch up, watch me.”

They didn’t get them all done, but most of them. When Yang eventually hugged her goodbye they had two baskets full of lilac flowers standing in the living room. Blake left the windows open and folded two more flowers on her own before she got bored with it and stopped.

Emerald was in the bedroom. She liked working at home, other than Blake who didn’t want to bring too much of it into her private life. Blake sat down next to her and leaned her head against her shoulder. “Busy?”

“Not really.” She closed her laptop. “I would have helped you with the flowers, but I didn’t want to keep you from having your girl talk.” She typed something on her laptop and then closed it. “How is Yang?”

“Everything fine.” Sometimes it was hard to keep things from Emerald that Yang had told her. But either Mercury had to tell her about this one or Yang had to give her her okay. “How are you?”

“Just stressed.” She sighed and pushed her laptop to the side, shifting to wrap her arms around Blake. “Merc asked if I can look after Effie tomorrow, but I actually have stuff to do. I just think… he probably thinks it’s not because I’m actually busy but because I don’t want to be alone with her.”

“Would you have an issue with being alone with her?”

“No, not really. I mean she’s a child, I’ve never looked after a child, but I don’t think it’s because of… _her_.”

“Cinder.”

“Yes.” She leaned her head back against the headboard. “It’s more about the things she has said. It’s hard to get that out of your system, to realise not all of it is true.”

“Nothing of it is true.”

“I mean she sometimes said I have a great body, I have to take a compliment when I get it.”

Blake smirked and placed soft kisses on her neck, her collarbone, her cleavage. “A great body indeed.”

Emerald chuckled. “It means more coming from you, though.”


	16. Chapter 16

“I don’t think he has to watch the videos,” Ruby said. “It’s more of an instruction for you, how you can teach him how to play dead.”

“We’re watching it together. So that we both know what to do.” Effie had Zwei on her lap, petting him while they watched a video on Taiyang’s iPad.

“I can’t argue with that logic.” Ruby sat down next to them on the floor. Sometimes she could see so much of Mercury in Effie, sometimes she wasn’t sure how he had managed to make such a cute child. “That dog in the video is cute.”

“Don’t tell Zwei. He might think you like that dog more than him.”

“Zwei knows I love him.”

“You need to tell him. Mercury never tells Yang that he loves her and what if she leaves him?”

Ruby sighed. “No one is going to leave anyone. I mean, I don’t understand their relationship at all, but Yang knows what she’s doing. She’s been with Mercury for longer than anyone of us ever expected.”

“How did they get together?”

“They used to visit the same kickboxing club. That’s all I know, to be honest. It had been going on for almost two years before she forgot dad wanted to visit. He caught him trying to climb out of the window and invited him to a very awkward family dinner. That’s when I first met him.”

“Why didn’t she tell you? You’re her sister.”

“Her little baby sister. She still thinks I’m twelve and that I’m too young to know about any of that.” She shrugged. “She’s still the best sister in the world though.”

“I like Yang,” Effie whispered.

Ruby leaned down and scratched Zwei behind his years. “Know what? She likes you too. A lot actually.”

“She says that, but when mummy had a fight with Roman he was gone until she told him she loved him again on the phone.”

Sometimes kids were heartbreaking. Ruby sighed and wrapped her arms around Effie. She didn’t want to think badly of dead people, but Effie’s mum was making that really hard for her. “It’s not like that with Yang. She had a girlfriend in College and she still sometimes visits to see her dog. She loves you. She’s not going to break up with Mercury and even if she would, she wouldn’t just stop being in your life. She’s totally committed to this stepmom thing.”

“In fairy tales stepmoms are evil.”

“You know, my mother was Yang’s stepmom too.” Ruby reached for the tablet and searched for the folder with the old family photos. “Look, that’s her with Yang. She looks nice, doesn’t she?”

“Were you sad when she died?”

“I actually barely remember it. But Yang does. You know, one thing you have to learn about Yang is that she’s the most loving and caring person you will ever meet, but she’s also incredibly stubborn. She’d never let Mercury keep you away from her. And with him she always gets what she wants.”

Effie leaned against Ruby. “I like having aunts.”

Ruby smiled. “And I like having a niece.”

 

* * *

 

“How is this something you thought you didn’t have to tell me?” Yang got up. She didn’t like to sit when she was angry, and right now she was furious. “She called you. You talked to her. Several times. But you’ve never told me?”

“It’s not a big deal, calm the fuck down.”

“It is a big deal! You should have told me you’d talked to her. You shouldn’t have talked to her in the first place!”

“She called me!” His voice was harsh. He leaned against the doorframe like he always did, as if he needed a way out to not feel trapped. “What am I supposed to do when an unknown number calls me?”

“Talk to me about it! I’m your girlfriend and when she wants something from you I want to know! You let me take care of your child but you won’t tell me about this?”

“Don’t bring Effie into this, Yang.”

She hated it when he said her name like that. Impersonal. As if she was just _someone_. “Don’t pretend that this doesn’t concern her as well.”

“It doesn’t concern anyone but me!”

“Bullshit!”

“I knew you’d react like that, and you know why. This isn’t even about me or her. You’re just freaking out because you absolutely fail to work out your issues with Raven.”

“Don’t bring her into this.”

“It’s all about her, Yang! You’re not mad because my mother called, you’re mad because when Raven called you, you didn’t do anything but hang up! She called me, she asked for money, I told her to go fuck herself. It doesn’t bother me, because I don’t let her screw me over like that, and it shouldn’t bother you. Stop using me as a punching bag for your screwed up relationship with your mother, because I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“Fuck you.” She clenched her teeth. “I’m done with you. You’re an insensitive bastard and I shouldn’t have let you get me pregnant.” She roughly shoved him aside with her shoulder when she left the room, grabbing her sneakers.

“Go fuck yourself, Yang.”

“I’ll go fuck anyone else but you, Mercury.”

She slammed the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

Tea didn’t make anything better, but at least it helped her to swallow her tears. Yang pulled her knees to her chest. “He’s wrong,” she said. She knew he wasn’t, but she felt like admitting that would only make her feel worse. “We wanted to have today for ourselves. Effie is with dad and Ruby, we had sex, we had breakfast, we fell asleep while watching a movie, and then this happens. I knew it was a bad idea to have a child with him.”

“Was it that bad?” Blake asked.

“It’s not about the fight. It wasn’t worse than usually. It’s about what the fight was about. I just don’t want to see him right now. Can I sleep on your couch?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thank you.” She sipped on her tea. “Can we talk about something else? I’d rather make a thousand more origami flowers than –“ She stopped when her phone was buzzing. Mercury’s name appeared on the display, along with a stupid selfie she had taken with him ages ago. She hesitated for a moment, then she took her phone and turned it off. “Anyway, are there any more origami flowers to fold?”

“Try to relax. Do you want to watch a movie?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Yang got up. “I’ll pick the movie, you get us snacks?”

“Yeah. I’ll just go and see what Emerald is –“ Blake’s phone was buzzing, and Yang only needed to see the look on her face to know it was Mercury. “Wow, guess he either is really sorry or really mad.”

“He can wait. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Maybe I’ll text him later.”

“Text him later. Maybe he’s worried.”

“I will.” Yang reached for the remote to turn on the TV and see what Netflix had to offer. “Do you feel like you’re having a period drama day or a baking show day?”

Emerald opened the door to the living room more aggressively than it deserved. “Mercury called,” she said.

“He can’t be serious. If that idiot doesn’t stop –“

“Yang!” The look on Emerald’s face made her stop. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen her that concerned. “Effie is missing.”


	17. Chapter 17

There were too many people in her living room.

There had been police officers, but Qrow and Taiyang had sent them away, declaring this their business. But that had just prompted their boss to send even more enforcement. It was a blur of people talking to her about things she forgot immediately afterwards, frantically searching for pictures before Weiss did it for her, Roman pacing up and down the living room, Blake making her tea and bringing her a fresh cup when hers had gone cold.

“Is it possible she ran away?” a police officer asked for the hundredth time.

“No.” Ruby’s eyes were red from crying too much. “I don’t know why she would do that. I promised her to get my old comics from the attic and she’s been talking about that all the time, she didn’t look like someone who would run away. And where would she even go?”

“Her old apartment? To Roman’s place?” Qrow suggested.

“She knew she could call Roman anytime,” Yang said.

Qrow looked at Roman again. “Maybe you should still wait at your apartment.”

“Someone is there,” he said. “I’ve already thought about that.”

“Maybe someone from Cinder’s past?” Taiyang asked. “Would anyone have a reason to kidnap Effie?”

“Cinder is dead,” Roman said. “What would be the point?”

“Still.”

“I’ve kept her stupid ass out of that ever since Effie was born. If I knew anyone who could have done it I would tell you, but I don’t.”

“What about your mother?” Yang said.

Mercury was standing next to the door, arms crossed in front of his chest. Everything about him was tensed, and she wasn’t even sure if anyone else but her could see it; but even though he seemed calm, he was freaking out. Yang wished that Emerald was here and not roaming the streets with Ilia and Jaune in hope of still finding Effie, so at least someone could comfort him. Someone who wasn’t too caught up in the aftermath of a fight and the last crumbs left of her pride.

“What about her?” he asked.

“Could she have something to do with it?”

“I thought you weren’t in touch,” Taiyang said.

“She calls from time to time though I tell her not to. She doesn’t know about Effie, and I want it to stay that way.”

Qrow got up from the sofa. “We can follow that hint without telling her what this is about. Do you have an address?”

Mercury shrugged. “She’s a whore.”

Taiyang gave him an angry glare. “This is not the time to insult her because of your little quarrel instead of helping us.”

“No, literally. She works as a prostitute. I don’t know where she lives, but she has a website and all, so you might be able to track her down that way. Just don’t tell her where I live, she keeps begging for money.”

Taiyang looked adequately shocked. If Qrow shared those sentiments, he didn’t let it show, but he had never liked Mercury anyway. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“She was just playing in the garden with Zwei, I checked for her and ten minutes later she was gone,” Ruby mumbled.

“It’s not your fault,” Blake said. “You don’t have to watch a six year old all the time.”

“Well, maybe it is,” Mercury growled. “You were _supposed_ to look after her after all.”

“Shut up.” Yang glared at him. Weiss wrapped her arm around Ruby’s shoulders.

Mercury’s glare was cold, with an underlying anger she couldn’t bear. She hadn’t seen him like that in a long time. “Come on, why do you even care? She’s not your daughter.”

She clenched her hand to a fist. “She might not be your daughter, but I love her more than you do. If it wasn’t for me you would have sent her back to foster care anyway.”

“Stop making this a fucking competition where you get off on outparenting me, Yang.”

“Guys, stop.” Blake laid her hand on Yang’s arm to stop her from saying anything else. “Don’t make me call Emerald to stop you from tearing each other apart.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Taiyang said. “You should go to sleep. There’s nothing you can do right now.”

It was easier to be angry at Mercury, because when she wasn’t everything that was left was this horrible, numb uncertainty. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“You won’t be of any use tomorrow if you don’t sleep.”

Yang sighed. She knew he was right. She got up and for a moment she thought about just ignoring him, but then she grabbed Mercury by the wrist, pulled him with her. He followed her without protest.

They didn’t bother to get out of their clothes. He lied down with his back turned towards her so she did as well, curling up on the bed and staring into the dark. After a moment she heard him move behind her, then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, her back pressed against his chest, his face buried in her hair, and she wasn’t sure who was comforting who. She knew he wasn’t asleep and they both wouldn’t fall asleep for a while, but there was nothing to be said between them. Nothing about Effie that they didn’t know already, nothing about all the things they had said in their fight. Just pretending to try to fall asleep until they actually did.

 

* * *

 

There was this one blissful moment right after waking up when she didn’t remember her world was crumbling down and absolutely nothing was alright. Reality only hit her harder after that. It wasn’t worth it.

She carefully escaped Mercury’s embrace and got up, trying not to wake him up. Her neck hurt, probably from the stress, and she felt gross from sleeping in her clothes. It felt like she hadn’t slept at all, but it was already past ten.

It was weird to have the apartment full of people. Yang heard voices from the living room and went right for the kitchen. It was a mess. Used cups and plates all over, a plate with sandwiches on the table that looked like Weiss had made them, too neat and tidy for anyone else. Yang turned on the coffee machine, but it complained about the water tank being empty.

“You shouldn’t drink coffee.”

Yang looked up. Blake looked horrible, her hair in a ponytail and dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing one of Yang’s sweaters, it was way too big on her. “I need it, I feel dead.”

“Take a shower, and then eat something.” She began to put cups into the dishwasher. “This is enough stress already.”

“Any news?”

Blake shook her head. “I slept on the couch, Weiss went home and came back this morning. Tai slept in the guest room. Listening gave me a headache, so I’ve been hiding in the kitchen for most of the time. I don’t really know what’s going on, but your dad promised to let me know as soon as anything important happened.”

“I don’t want to shower.”

“It’ll make you feel better. Go shower and I’ll make you breakfast, okay?”

“Alright, alright.”

Showering didn’t make her feel better, but it woke her up. She wasn’t sure if she wouldn’t have preferred tiredness over the raging anxiety inside of her. When she stepped out of the shower someone knocked on the door. “Yeah?” She grabbed for a towel.

“It’s me.”

She opened the door and Mercury slipped inside. He looked worse than she had expected, like he hadn’t slept at all. “Did I wake you up?”

He sipped on a cup of coffee before he put it on the sink. “No. Blake said you were here.” He took aspirin out of the cabinet behind the mirror and swallowed two of them with his coffee.

“Well, at least she gave you coffee. I wasn’t that lucky.” She tried to put her hair into a messy bun, giving up on trying to stop the towel from slipping down, but it was almost impossible with only one arm. Mercury stepped behind her and took the hair tie out of her hand to do it for her

“She didn’t give you any? Good.” His fingers wandered over her shoulders for a moment.

“Oh, come on.”

“You shouldn’t even have that much stress right now.” He pressed a kiss on her neck before he turned away and took his shirt off.

She rolled her eyes and took his bathrobe, trying not to look at Effie’s, purple with dinosaurs. “Our daughter disappeared, that is stressful to most people.”

“Our daughter?”

“Your daughter. I said your daughter.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Even if I did that, I –“

“You don’t have to justify it. I mean I’ve known her just as long as you have.” He took his pants off.

“Hey, are you… how are you?”

“Well, why don’t you guess?”

She stepped closer and pulled him down before she kissed him. She didn’t know what to say. Everything would have felt like an empty promise. He looked tired, the kind of tired when he had his nightmares again and spent most of the night walking through the apartment and doing stuff to keep himself distracted. But right now any attempt to cover it up was missing, any humorous smirk or bad joke. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen him this worked up about something. “I love you,” she whispered. He didn’t say anything, just pecked her lips before he stepped into the shower.

When Yang got dressed she only felt worse. Blake wasn’t in the kitchen anymore, but she found a plate with sandwiches and apple slices, next to it a cup of tea. She took both and went to the living room, pushing the door open with her shoulder.

The voices stopped when she went inside. “Go on, don’t let me interrupt –“ She turned around and froze. “What the hell is she doing here?” she spat out.

Raven was sitting at the dinner table with Taiyang, Qrow, and a woman with short brown hair. Blake and Emerald were sitting on the sofa. Yang didn’t know where to look, so she stared at her dad for a moment before she looked back at Raven. She hadn’t seen her in two years and she still seemed older than last time. Her hair was still black, but Yang was almost sure she dyed it. The black blazer looked oddly professional on her.

“I called her,” Qrow said.

“Why would you do that?”

“Effie has been missing for almost eighteen hours now. We need all the help we can get.”

“What is she going to do, let a SWAT team roam the streets in case they find anything that you’ve missed?”

“My men and women are specialists,” Raven said. “Usually they wouldn’t spend their time on a simple missing child, but I can pull some strings.”

“Glad to know Effie is just a simple missing child.” Yang sat down on the sofa, balancing her plate on her legs and taking a sip from her tea. “Well, if she was a terrorist, you’d probably find her immediately.”

“It’s not like I wanted to do this,” Qrow said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Come on, you know I don’t like her. I wouldn’t have called her if there had been any other way.”

“Well, thanks, brother.” Raven looked down on the map in front of them again. “Guess you wouldn’t have had to call me if your officers knew what they are doing. My daughter’s stepdaughter disappeared without a trace while playing in your backyard. We can’t rule out this has something to do with me and my work.”

Yang put her cup and her plate on the coffee table without taking a bite. She felt sick all of a sudden. She had no idea what she would do if this was Raven’s fault, if anything happened to Effie because of Raven. She felt Blake’s hand on her arm, but it didn’t make anything better.

“It’s unlikely,” Taiyang said. “Don’t panic. I’m sure we’ll find her soon.”

“Eat something,” Blake whispered. She took one of the sandwiches and gave it to her. “Really.”

Yang took a bite, but it tasted like nothing. She forced herself to swallow it, just so Blake would shut up and to give her an excuse not to say anything. She tried not to look at Raven, but it seemed impossible.

“I would have warned you,” Blake whispered. “But I didn’t hear you come out of the shower.”

Yang shrugged. She wanted to say that it was okay, but it wasn’t, and she didn’t feel like lying to her today. She forced herself to eat half of the sandwiches and some of the apples, but it felt like something was blocking her throat. “I forgot my phone,” she said and got up.

In the kitchen she felt like she could finally breathe again. She sat down at the kitchen table. Blake was probably right, she wasn’t supposed to be that stressed, but the worst thing was that she didn’t even know which child to be scared for right now.

She heard steps from the hallway, someone coming into the kitchen. She didn’t look up. “Blake, it’s alright, I –“

“It’s me.”

She looked up. Raven filled her cup with coffee, but she didn’t leave like Yang had expected her to. Instead she sat down at the other side of the table and looked at her. “What do you want?” Yang asked.

“Are you pregnant?”

She blinked. “Who told you?”

“No one. It’s just… you look different.”

“Guess I’m screwed then.” She looked down at her hands. There were so many things she had always wanted to tell her, but none of it seemed to matter now. “What do you want?” she asked again, almost a whisper. This time it wasn’t an accusation, just a question.

“I’m here because Qrow asked me to help.”

“You never help him with his cases.”

“Not often. But I’m not here because of him, I’m here because of you.”

“You didn’t have to. We don’t owe each other anything.”

Raven sighed and leaned back. She didn’t look as intimidating like that while she sipped on her coffee, as unapproachable. “I mean I probably owe you a lot.”

“Yes, but I don’t want that.” She looked down, scratched some wax off the kitchen table, probably still left from when it had lived in her old apartment, wine with Blake or way back when she still had thought romantic candle light dinners might be something Mercury was into. “You always act like either I owe you something, or you think if you do something for me I had no right to be mad at you anymore.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Probably.” She shrugged. It wasn’t like anything of that mattered right now. “Honestly, what do you think? Will we find her?”

“I don’t know. It hasn’t been long enough for me to say it’s very unlikely, but reality is that not all of these cases have a happy ending.”

She swallowed the tears. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for… being honest with me.”

“My team is on it. We’re doing everything that can be done right now.” Raven got up and got a glass from the cupboard, filling it with water. “Your friend is right, you should eat. The stress already isn’t good for you.”

“You know, one reason why I never wanted to get pregnant is that everyone treats you like a raw egg.”

“Are you going to keep it?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Raven put the glass of water on the table in front of her. “Take it easy, okay?”

“Nothing is easy right now.”

Qrow ripped the kitchen door open, hard enough to make Yang fear for it. “Yang, come on,” he said. “They’ve found her.”


	18. Chapter 18

It was an awkward scene in Qrow’s police department office, both of them trying to hug Effie at once, arms entangling with each other. Effie’s eyes were red and swollen from crying too much, wearing an oversized hoodie with the police station’s logo on the right breast. Her hands were hidden by the sleeves and she struggled to free them when she wanted to hug them back. Qrow had explained that they needed to check her clothes for evidence, but seeing her like this had horrified him at first. Yang pressed a kiss on Effie’s cheek and then let Mercury pick her up. Effie buried her face in his shoulder, her tiny arms wrapped around his neck. He knew he should have been relieved, but he still felt on edge. He wouldn’t let go of her anytime soon. 

“A jogger found her this morning. Apparently it took a while until she got here, since she refused to go with him, and then he had no phone, so they had to wait for someone to pass by and call the police.” Qrow leaned against his desk. “She said an old man kidnapped her, but she ran away.”

“Roman showed me how to pick a lock,” Effie whispered.

“Well, of course he did.” Yang stroked Effie’s back. “But who was it? And why?”

“That’s what we need to find out.” Qrow took a sip from his coffee. “We need to talk to Effie about what happened, maybe see if she can describe the man well enough. But we can do that later in your apartment. I want to get her home as fast as possible now. I’ll give you a ride.”

It was easier when they had something to do. Letting Effie take a bath, getting her dressed, sitting with her while she ate the cheese sandwich Blake made for her. Effie didn’t talk about what had happened, but she seemed okay, asked how Dante had been and if she could watch TV now. But when she was lying on the couch with Blake, petting Dante while watching a cartoon, Mercury wasn’t sure how to distract himself anymore.

He followed Yang into the kitchen. It felt wrong to take his eyes off Effie, but he needed coffee. Yang’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, worried, before she sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. “Holy shit.” She buried her face in her hands. “What if it had been some child murderer? Or a human trafficking ring? What if Roman _hadn’t_ shown her how to pick a fucking lock?”

“You’re not making it any better.”

“Sorry.” She stretched her arm out and he sat down next to her, letting her run her hand through his hair. “How are you?”

“Parenting sucks.” He leaned back in his chair. His muscles had been tensed for the past twenty hours and now everything hurt. He wasn’t used to care that much about someone that vulnerable, and he had no idea how he was supposed to manage a child even smaller than Effie. He cared about Yang and Emerald, but they were both more than able to look after themselves. Babies couldn’t pick locks when someone kidnapped them.

“We need to find out what happened.” She stroked the back of his hand. “My mum said she’ll help us.”

“You’ve talked to her?”

She shrugged. “Well, you told me to work out my mummy issues.” She leaned in closer, kissing his cheek. “You were really worried, huh?”

“So what?”

“I’m just worried. About you.” She intertwined her fingers with his.

“Being worried won’t help anyone.” He didn’t look at her. Sometimes all the warmth she drowned him in was hard to bear.

“I’m not just worried, I’m fucking angry.” She sat up. “No one just kidnaps my stepdaughter without consequences. She’s a part of this family now, and no one does that to one of us. I’ll buy my mum flowers for every mother’s day that she spent ditching me if that will make her take care of this.”

“She’s my daughter.” It still felt weird to say that. “I should be able to handle this.”

“You’re a part of this family too, Merc. And we don’t do things alone unless we want or have to.”

He sighed. Maybe letting Raven handle this wasn’t the worst idea. Maybe it was. But right now he didn’t know what to do except staring at the wall and feeling like he had gotten himself into something too frightening to even think about. “How are you?” he asked. “How’s the baby?”

“Fine I guess.” She shrugged. “It’s not even a baby yet, I mean it looks a bit like an alien, I googled it. I’m just… you know, trying to stop being scared now. I know Effie is fine, but it didn’t sink in yet.” She looked down, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. “Mum knows.”

“Did you tell her?”

“No, she just knew. I don’t know how. You sure as hell didn’t tell her, neither did Blake, and those are the only people who know. Or did you tell Em?”

“No. I wanted to, but there were so many other things to deal with.” He sighed. “I’ll go see if Effie is okay.” Of course she was, she was safe in the living room and Blake was with her, but it still didn’t feel real.

Effie was sitting next to Blake, Dante on her lap. He sat down next to her and she looked at him for a moment before she moved closer and cuddled up to him. Dante glared at him and moved to Yang’s sweater that was still lying on the couch. For a moment he didn’t know what to do, then he wrapped his arm around her. He wasn’t used to this, usually she only wanted to cuddle with Yang.

“Did you even get any sleep tonight?” he asked.

“I pretended to sleep, and then I escaped.”

That’s what she had from Cinder, clever enough to escape every bad situation she got herself into. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Qrow said they still have to ask me questions.”

“Yeah, but the police officer coming to ask questions will either be your grandfather or your uncle,” Blake said. “They will wait until you wake up.”

“Is Tai my grandfather?”

“Sure. Yang is your stepmom, and Tai really likes you. You’re a part of the family now.”

Effie looked at Mercury. “What do you think?”

“My parents are dead, so he’s the best grandfather you’ll get. Enjoy the extra birthday presents.” He shifted to get more comfortable, leaned back and rested his feet on the coffee table.

“Are you going to wake me up when they come?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay.” She rested her head against his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be weird to hold her in his arms like that, but right now he was just glad she was back, alive and well. He never wanted to let go of her again.

 

* * *

 

The view almost made up for everything. Mercury and Effie cuddled up on the sofa, both asleep. He had wrapped his arms around her and her head was resting on his chest, Dante sitting next to them and glaring at them unhappily. Yang took a blanket and spread it over the two of them before she left them alone. They both probably needed to catch up on a lot of sleep right now.

She went back to the kitchen. Blake was cleaning up the mess everyone had caused yesterday and this morning. Yang had no idea how to thank her, for this and everything else. “You don’t have to do this,” Yang said.

“I really don’t want you to have more stress than already now.” Blake closed the dishwasher. “Really, Yang. If anything like that happened to one of us you’d be the first to be there and support us. Let us help.”

She sighed. There was nothing she could say against that, only swear to be there for her if Blake ever needed help. “Thank you. Honestly.”

“How are you feeling?”

Yang knew what she really meant. “Nothing I shouldn’t feel I guess. I’m slowly calming down.” She shrugged helplessly. “I mean there is nothing I could change about the situation, or how much I care. I can’t do anything about it now, so if I have a miscarriage because of that I will…” She didn’t even know what she would do then.

“No one says that has to happen.” Blake pulled her into a hug. “Everything will be alright, okay? Effie is home now and we’re not ever going to let her out of our sight again.”

Yang leaned against her. It always felt weird to her to let someone comfort her, but with Blake it was weirdly alright. It didn’t feel wrong to be weak around her, even more than with Mercury. “I’ll find that bastard and cut his throat,” she mumbled.

“We’ll find him.” She stroked her back. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

 

* * *

 

“He pulled me into the car.” Effie seemed calmer than Mercury had expected her to, calmer than he felt. “I don’t know who he was. An old man. He smelled bad.”

“What did he look like?” Qrow asked. “Anything is important.”

“He had white hair.”

“Was his nose big or small?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“White and big.”

“Do you have any idea who he was? Did he tell you his name?”

“He said he’s an old friend of Mercury.”

He felt his muscles tense automatically. Qrow’s gaze lingered on him as if he had an idea of who Effie was talking about, Yang’s gaze lingered on him, worried. Still, Qrow didn’t ask in front of Effie. “Where did the man bring you?” he asked.

“A basement. He gave me chocolate chip cookies to eat but I don’t like those. Then it got dark and I picked the lock like Roman showed me and ran away.”

“Where were you? What did the area look like?”

“It was dark. There were houses. I walked until I was tired, then I didn’t know where to go.”

Qrow looked at his notebook. He hadn’t written down much. “If you remember anything else just tell Yang or Mercury, okay?” He closed his notebook. “How are you feeling?”

Effie looked at Yang for a moment, then down at her hands. “I don’t know.”

Yang rubbed her back. “The whole police department is now looking out for you.”

“Mercury, why don’t you show me how your coffee machine works?”

“Sure.” He would have loved to tell him that Effie could probably see right through that, but he just nodded and got up.

Qrow closed the kitchen door behind them. If he was honest, and he had no reason not to be, Mercury had never liked Qrow, and he was pretty sure Qrow reciprocated those feelings. “Be honest. Do you have any idea who it is?”

“No.” Mercury leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Someone from your past maybe?”

He didn’t know what Yang had told him about his past, but it couldn’t be much. “If I knew anything, you wouldn’t need to ask me to tell you. I don’t know any old men who could hold a grudge against me. You should probably rather ask Roman about his and Cinder’s friends.”

“We’re already doing extensive background checks on both of them.” Qrow turned on the coffee machine without issues, taking a mug out of the kitchen cabinet. “What about your father?”

“He died ten years ago.” It wasn’t like anything could make him forget watching him die, blood on his hands, struggling to feel relief.

“We checked on your mother, but maybe one of her… clients?”

“She only has my number because I needed a birth certificate for my college application, if I let her call me once in a while and tell her to fuck off she stays off my ass. She doesn’t know where I live, and definitely not that Effie even exists unless you idiots told her.”

“Careful.”

Mercury shrugged, not pretending to care. “Why would someone steal a child for a dirty old whore?”

“No, I didn’t tell her. But I also don’t believe you that you have no idea who that man could be.”

“Then don’t. Won’t get you anywhere though.”

Qrow filled his cup with coffee and opened the kitchen door again. “And I hoped you’d be useful for once.”


	19. Chapter 19

Being scared for a child felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Not Effie being in her life, not caring for her so incredibly much. But lying awake at night because she thought about all the horrible things that could happen to her? That was a different story. She had been calling in sick from work all week, but leaving her side felt wrong, even if she was safely at home with Mercury, who she knew well enough to know he’d rather cut his arms off as well than let anything happen to her.

It was sort of an emergency meeting at Blake’s and Emerald’s apartment. Weiss was at work, but Yang and Ruby had come to help both of them finally finish the wedding invitations. The living room was a battlefield of envelopes, paper, ribbons, lace, and dried violet petals. Weiss and Yang had spent ages working on the final design and she was really proud of it, but only finishing one took ages.

“Why do your parents need an invitation?” Emerald asked. “Don’t you think they know by now we’re getting married?”

“It’s for the experiences,” Yang said. “The compromise is me and Mercury only getting one.”

“Shit, did you use the new one with Effie’s name in it?” Emerald took the box with the cards and went through them.

“Yeah, we did. I checked that.” Blake didn’t look up from the lace she was cutting. “Couldn’t we have done something simpler?”

“This is a memory that will last a lifetime.” Yang rolled her eyes. “It looks amazing. It makes an impression. It fits the theme. You said you loved it. We’re all in this together now.”

“Remind me to never let you and Weiss plan my wedding.” Ruby put the box with a finished invitation on the stack with the others.

“Sort out your love life first.”

 “There is nothing to sort out, I told you we’re just friends.” Ruby blushed. “Anyway, were those ribbons really necessary?”

“Don’t try to argue with her,” Blake said. “She won’t give in.”

“I’ll make coffee.” Emerald got up. 

“Wait, I’ll help you.” Blake followed Emerald into the kitchen, seeming a bit too eager to get away from the invitations.

“Cowards.” Yang closed the box with the invitation for Ren and Nora. “Effie keeps asking for you by the way. She says you promised to build a pillow fort with her.”

“Oh, yeah. I might have said that.”

“Hey, you know we’re not mad at you, right? No one blames you for anything.”

Ruby sighed and looked down at the box in front of her. “I just… I know I should have looked out for her.”

“You couldn’t have known someone would kidnap her from the backyard. When I was that age I played there all on my own for hours. It’s not your fault. You’re still in the running to be her favourite aunt.”

“No one has a chance against Blake anyway.” Ruby looked up. “Next time I won’t leave her side.”

“We won’t leave her alone until we’ve found that man.”

“Do you have any idea who it could be?”

“Not yet, but… Raven’s at it.” Yang looked down at the box again.

“How do you… are you alright with that? I mean Raven being involved.”

“It’s not a big deal.” It actually was, but Ruby was the last person she wanted to know how much it bothered her. “I mean if it keeps Effie safe it’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“I bet Qrow isn’t happy about it.”

“He probably regrets getting her involved now that she refuses to just drop the case.” He definitely did. But Yang didn’t know how she felt about it herself.

 

* * *

 

“She doesn’t need a babysitter when she’s with me.” Roman leaned back in his armchair, sipping on his coffee. “Or do you still think I had anything to do with it?”

“I never said you had anything to do with it.” Yang rolled her eyes. Effie had disappeared somewhere in his apartment, maybe turning his bedroom into a mess or drawing on his walls.

“That broody cop definitely thought I did.”

“You have no idea what he was like when he first met Mercury.” Yang poured more sugar into her coffee which made Roman grimace. “We’re all anxious around her right now.”

“Maybe, but this whole situation isn’t good for her. You keep dropping her off at my place once in a while. She keeps asking when she can see me again and I have to tell her that I don’t know.”

“I know. It’s just been so busy all the time. The new situation with her, moving places, my…” Pregnancy. “My job stressing me out. We need to come up with some kind of schedule.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying the whole time.”

“It also doesn’t help that you and Merc are so bitchy around each other all the time.”  

“He never liked me. He’s been a really annoying emo boy back when I first met him.”

“He’s still like that sometimes.”

“Roman!” Effie came back running into the living room, carrying something white in her hand. “What’s that?”

Roman sat up, all of a sudden a lot more nervous than before. “Did you go through my stuff again even though I told you not to?”

“It was under the bed,” Effie said, not seeming to see any fault on her side.

“It’s a shirt.” He snuck it from her hands. “People wear shirts.”

“You don’t wear lace, and that’s not mum’s.”

“Go get yourself some cookies from the kitchen and shut up about it.”

Bribery worked with Effie. She disappeared again and Yang didn’t even try to stop laughing. “Someone you’re going to introduce her, to or just a casual fling?”

“Certainly the latter.” He hid the shirt behind one of the sofa pillows and leaned back. “And none of your business actually.”

“All gossip is my business, Roman. Effie will tell me all about it anyway.”

“It’s not like she has met any of the women I slept with in the past apart from her mum, I’m not going to change that now.”

“Your relationship with Cinder really was something, huh?”

 “She needed someone to remind her to feed Effie, I had no way to get sole custody of a child that isn’t mine.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad actually. In the end we didn’t expect too much from each other, she had her lovers, I had mine.”

“Like the woman that shirt is from?”

“No, that’s more… it won’t last, so it doesn’t matter.” He got up. “I need more coffee and stop Effie from eating all the cookies, you want anything?”

She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

 

* * *

 

“Fuck off with your prequels.” Yang won the short wrestle for the remote control and rested her head on his chest while she browsed through his watchlist. “I can’t believe you have all this crap in here.”

“Just switch to your account.”

“Too lazy.” She picked a movie he couldn’t even remember putting on his list while he wrapped his arms around her. She was basically lying on top of him, like a warm and heavy blanket with elbows that could poke his ribs, and hair that was everywhere. “I just don’t want the Star Wars prequels, nor any food documentaries. Food makes me feel sick at the moment.”

“Like when you ate all the snacks you could find about two hours ago?”

“I shouldn’t have done that. My favourite pair of jeans doesn’t even fit me anymore.”

“Because you’re pregnant, not because you’re getting fat.”

“It’s basically the same thing at this point.”

“Are those my sweatpants?”

“Maybe. They’re comfortable.”

“Yeah, that’s why I bought them. For me.”

“You’re free to borrow my clothes anytime you want.”

“Mhm.” He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, running his hand up and down her back. “Maybe I’ll just take them away from you later tonight before you turn into a whale.”

“The most erotic whale you’ve ever seen.” She placed small, soft kisses on his neck. “You’ll feel bad about how much you’ll want this whale.”

“It’s not like you’ll actually look like a whale, just really, really fat.” His hands wandered beneath her shirt.

“Yes, but she –“ She froze, pulling herself up on her arm to look at him. “Hey, wait. We’re talking about this as if I was actually doing it and… am I doing it?”

He sighed. “Way to ruin the mood.”

“Merc, I’m serious.”

He shrugged, running his fingers up and down her spine. “I never thought you would not have it.”

She sat up. “I told you I’m not sure.”

“Sometimes you’re actually not sure and sometimes you just push off the decision until someone makes it for you.”

She blinked at him, and for a moment she looked almost terrified. He sat up and she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Shit.”

“I’m surprised you realised it that early.” He pulled her closer.

“What did you think when I would realise it?”

“Maybe when it’s born.”

“Idiot.” She wrapped her arm around his neck. “Shit, this is so… real all of a sudden. I love Effie, but maybe I won’t even like this kid. Maybe I’ll be a bad mum. Also we still have some crazy man running around who very much wants to steal Effie, so maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“Yang.” He pulled her up by her chin to make her look at him. “I’m supposed to be the angsty one in this relationship.”  

She took a deep breath. “I thought it was balanced.”

“You know, Blake is better at this. Can’t I just leave her the part where she tells you that you actually want this child and that you’ll be an amazing mum, and I just roll with it and pretend I’m okay with this whole dad thing until I believe it myself?”

“I fucking hate you.” She leaned down to kiss him softly. “Fuck I need to call Blake.”

“She’s probably screwing Em right now.”

Yang got up. “She’ll want to know she’s becoming an aunt. Emerald’s orgasm can wait.”

 

* * *

 

“Don’t answer it,” Emerald whispered, unclasping her bra.

“It’s Yang, maybe it’s –“

Emerald cut her off with a kiss. “It’s not urgent. When was the last time she called you and it was so urgent that it can’t wait an hour?”

“Yeah, right.” She forced herself not to look at the phone. Honestly not that hard with her half naked girlfriend right in front of her. She leaned forward and kissed her again, soft fingertips wandering over her stomach and then –

Her phone buzzed again. “Turn it off,” Emerald groaned.

Blake reached for her phone. _PICK UP THE PHONE IT’S URGENT_ , the message read. “Damn, I need to answer that, I’m so sorry.” She sat up and pressed her phone to her ear before Emerald could voice her protest. “Yang?”

“I think I’m panicking.”

“Okay, calm down.” Blake gave Emerald an apologetic look, but Emerald just groaned and let herself drop on her back. “Is everything alright? Did something happen?”

“I’m gonna keep the child.”

Oh, finally. “Yeah, I know. Good you finally realised it too.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? Sometimes I feel like you two are talking about me behind my back.”

“Tell her you’re not wearing a bra,” Emerald said. “Is it really that important if I’m about to get cold instead of horny?”

“She’s going to keep the child, Emmy, this is kinda important.”

“Which child? Effie?”

“Shit.” Blake groaned. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Are you really telling me she’s pregnant?”

“Blakey, did you just tell Em I’m pregnant?” Yang asked at the other end of the phone.

“I’m so sorry,” Blake said. “I’m so so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Merc would have told her soon anyway.”

“What do you mean she’s pregnant? Since when?” Emerald sat up. “Is that why Merc has been acting so weird lately?”

“That might just be the stress,” Blake said.

“Blake, what do I do now?” Yang sounded like she really was about to have a panic attack. “Shit, I’m really having this baby. I’ll grow big and press a whole child out of my vagina. Have you ever looked that up on YouTube? It looks brutal. That’s not supposed to happen to my body.”

“It’s literally meant to happen to your organs down there, Yang.” Blake sighed and leaned against the headboard of their bed.

“Okay, I can’t do this alone, Blake. Are you gonna stay with me when I press a child out of my vagina? I can’t trust Merc with that. He’ll pass out, or nope out, or something. I need someone to tell me I’m not going to die who doesn’t get paid for that.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Promised?”

“Promised. Even if it’s my wedding night.”

“Okay. Thank you. I seriously owe you.”

“You feeling better now?”

“Yes. Did I interrupt you doing something important?”

“No, was just about to go to bed.”

“I think I’m okay now. I’m probably gonna annoy Merc for the rest of the night until he pretends he’s fallen asleep or something.”

“Call me when you’re panicking again.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you, bye.” She hung up and sighed, not daring to look at Emerald for a moment.

“She’s pregnant?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“One child wasn’t enough for that idiot or what?” Emerald leaned her head against Blake’s shoulder.

“Maybe her uterus got pregnant out of spite because he had a child with another woman.”

“I need to call him tomorrow. Tell him that I know so he can whine my ear off about the whole thing.” Emerald leaned closer and placed kisses on Blake’s shoulder. “But I think one panic call is enough per night.”

She leaned down to give Emerald a soft kiss on the lips. “I’m so sorry. I’ll turn the phone off now.”

“Let’s just pick up where we left off.”


	20. Chapter 20

“No one is going to hate you.” Yang kneeled down in front of Effie, fixing the collar of her shirt. “It’s your first day, I’m not going to homeschool you until you give it a try.”

“How long do I have to give it a try?”

“Longer than a day. Remember I’ll pick you up after school, and don’t go with strangers. Don’t stay away too far from the teacher. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

“Stop sulking, Kitty.” She gave her a kiss on the cheek. “We can have pizza for lunch if you want, okay?”

“Promised?”

“Yes. And Dante is waiting for you when you come home. Just think about him when it doesn’t go well, okay? But it will. Now go before someone else sits next to Alev.”

She eventually ran off. Yang watched her go and got up when she disappeared into the building. “What if something happens?”

“Don’t make me nervous,” Mercury said.

“Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

Wanting the child made the appointment today all the more terrifying. The hospital smell made her sick and she couldn’t stop messaging Blake while they waited. She was pretty sure that she was still pregnant in some way, she had no reason to believe she wasn’t, but you couldn’t see anything yet, so maybe the baby was already dead.

“Did you know it’s absolutely possible your vagina will tear while you give birth?”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“The article says these are things women should know before giving birth.” Mercury didn’t look up from the magazine. “Right now I’m pretty glad I have a dick.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I’ll remind you later tonight.”

A pregnant woman gave them an annoyed glare, and just for that it was kinda worth it. “Yeah, when you give me a massage, because that backache is killing me.” She leaned her head against his shoulder.

It was the same doctor as last time, an old woman with grey hair who kept readjusting her glasses. She kept staring at the screen until Yang thought she was about to throw up. “Do you want a picture?” she asked eventually.

“Of what?” Mercury asked.

“Your child. What did you think we were doing here?” She pointed at the screen. “That is the head.”

“It actually looks like a baby this time,” Yang mumbled.

“You think so?” Mercury raised his eyebrows. “More like a weird gummy bear.”

“That’s definitely your influence.”

“Heartbeat is nice and strong,” the doctor said.

Yang looked up. “I thought that was mine?”

“It’s a bit fast for that.”

Well, she had been nervous. “So it’s not dead?”

The doctor gave her a bewildered look. “No, certainly not. Looks like everything is perfectly fine. You can start telling friends and family now.”

Yang wasn’t sure if she was more nervous before or after the appointment. They sat down on their balcony, Yang sipping on her tea (Mercury was still incredibly bad at making it) and trying not to make the thought of having to tell her dad freak her out.

“Blake says it does look a bit like a gummy bear,” Yang said.

“You sent her the picture?”

“Of course I did.” She looked at him. “How about we don’t tell everyone right away? I mean it’s not showing yet, so there is no reason to rush it.”

“You know I’m not that excited to have your uncle come after me either.” He looked at her, then looked away.

“Is anything wrong?”

He shrugged. “I just thought you’d be… I don’t know, happier.”

“I am… happy.” At least she was getting there. “There’s just so much that could go wrong.”

“You’re panicking.”

“A bit.”

“Effie will be excited.”

“Or she’ll hate the child because she thinks we want to replace her.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. “She’ll be thrilled. We’ll just sell it as the child being a real connection between you and her so now you can’t just leave her anymore, don’t worry, she’ll buy it.”

“You’re surprisingly calm.”

“I already went through the whole being shocked over suddenly having a child thing. I decided not to care anymore.”

“You’re not the one who’s gonna grow twice her size though.”

“Maybe you’ll even triple.”

“Jerk.” She nudged him with her elbow and laughed.

“Okay, but seriously. When do we tell Effie?”

“Maybe once she’s calmed down enough about the whole school situation.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“I need new clothes though. You don’t own any short pants that I can steal.”

 

* * *

 

The first day of school turned out to be not as bad as Effie had feared it would be. She talked so much about it while they were having lunch that she almost forgot to eat. Yang was almost done eating Mercury’s pizza crusts, Effie already in her room and telling Dante all about her day, when the doorbell rang. “It’s Blake,” Yang said.

“You’ve been texting all day.”

“But we haven’t seen each other for days.” She got up, still chewing on one of his crusts. “It’s about wedding stuff.”

He rolled his eyes. “Keep that away from me.”

When Yang opened the door Emerald was the first to hug her. “Congratulations,” she said. “I’m glad you’re ruining that idiot’s life for good.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Mercury yelled from the living room.

“Have you told Effie yet?” Blake asked, pulling Yang into her arms when Emerald finally let go of her.

“No. We decided to avoid it for now. As long as we don’t tell her we have an excuse not to tell anyone else, and I am not ready to have that conversation with my father yet.”

“But Ruby knows, does she?” Emerald asked.

“No. I didn’t want to tell her before we knew everything was alright, just in case something happens. Didn’t want that to stress her out.”

“You should tell her before we try on bridesmaid dresses.” Blake let go of her and smiled. “But first it’s Effie’s turn.”

“Go get her while I get us some lemonade. She’s in her room.” Yang knew she would be thrilled to see her.

“Alright, I’ll unpack the dresses in the living room,” Emerald said. “Merc, come here! I need help.”

Effie was beaming she came into the living room, followed by Blake. She was immediately sold on the idea of being a flower girl and they were all relieved when she didn’t have anything against the soft lilac they had chosen for the dresses, especially when they told her the bridesmaids would wear the same colour. Dante played with the plastic the dress had been wrapped in and then jumped on Yang’s lap. He only wanted to sleep on her stomach lately, Blake always told her it was because she was pregnant.

“We’ll buy it a bit bigger, just in case you hit a growth spurt,” Emerald said. “If it’s still too big once we get married, Blake’s mum can make some last minute changes on it.”

“I like lace.” Effie turned around in front of the mirror. “But the other dress has flowers on it.”

“You can have flowers in your hair.” Yang rubbed Dante behind his ears and he purred. “We’ll all have flowers in our hair.”

“But I’m the flower girl. I need more flowers.”

“You can still try on the other dress.” Blake sat down on the floor next to the armchair Yang was sitting on so she could pet Dante as well. “But the colour looks good on you.”

“I tried to talk Merc into wearing a tie in that colour,” Yang said. “But he just refused to wear one at all. I think a suit without the tie is everything we’re gonna get from him.”

“As long as no one tells him about the flowers we’ll stick to his suit.” Emerald smirked and helped Effie to slip into the other dress. “He can’t say no to me on my wedding day.”

“Are you his real sister?” Effie asked all of a sudden while Emerald closed the zipper on the back for her.

“Did he say that?” Emerald asked.

“I asked him if you’re just friends and he said it’s more a sibling thing. He didn’t say anything else, so what did he mean?”

“It’s his way of saying that he loves me a lot and that we’re really close friends.” Emerald smirked.

“Like Yang and Blake?”

“No,” Yang said. “I’d totally date Blake if we weren’t dating other people already.”

“God, Yang.” Blake blushed and nudged her leg with her elbow. “It’s just… there are different names for the same thing.”

“I like the dress,” Effie said, dropping the topic as soon as it got boring for her. “Can I keep it after the wedding?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It looks good.” Blake sat up. “We should get it in a size bigger though.”

“I’ll get my dress a size bigger too,” Yang quickly said. It was ridiculous, Effie was six and probably didn’t care, but she didn’t want her to feel bad. “Just more comfortable that way.”

“I need to show it to Mercury.” Effie was more jumping than running when she left the room. Emerald laughed and put the other dress back into the plastic bag.

“One size bigger, huh?” Blake looked at Yang. “You’ll be how pregnant again when we get married?”

“The wedding is two weeks before the baby is supposed to come.” Yang shrugged. “I’ll be huge, but I’ll also be on maternity leave, so nothing can stop me from throwing myself into wedding preparations.”

“Shouldn’t you use that time to rest and focus on yourself?” Emerald asked.

“That child wouldn’t want to keep me from doing the one thing I’m really looking forward to next year.”

“Apart from giving birth?” Blake raised her eyebrows.

“No, not since Merc told me vaginas can tear while you’re giving birth this morning.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Blake said, patting Yang’s stomach. “She’s thrilled to press you out of her genitals next year.”


	21. Chapter 21

“All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t hurt to put on a loose shirt instead of that tank top.”

Yang pulled the tank top over her head and threw it at him. “You said I’m not showing yet.”

“Depends on how you look at it.” To him she definitely was, but he had seen her naked more often than anyone else.

She took a loose white shirt out of the closet and put it on before she turned around in front of the mirror. “I look fat.”

“Your boobs have grown. I don’t know how your bra still fits you.”

“It’s a new bra.” She sat down on the bed next to him. “I don’t like being pregnant.”

“Stop sulking. We’re already late.”

“Jerk.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “You don’t look fat in that shirt.”

“But in the top?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Come on, I can only lose this game.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Can’t you call Blake to tell you you look absolutely beautiful?”

“I don’t know why I keep you around.” She rolled her eyes and got up. “Come on, let’s go before my dad thinks we’re not coming.”

Effie had grown to love family Sundays. She loved cuddling Zwei and having so many people around to play with, just having to pick between reading with Blake, doing crazy things with Yang and Ruby, or letting Weiss braid her hair. Today she had chosen to help Qrow and Yang with Qrow’s car. She was smiling when she came back inside, her hands smeared with motor oil, Yang taking her to the bathroom to scrub it off.

“I don’t get why we’re not trying on the bridesmaid dresses today,” Weiss said. “I mean Ilia isn’t here, but the rest of us are, I brought the dresses, so why not do it now and Ilia tries it on with me next week?”

“It’s just… you know, Yang is all full of motor oil right now anyway,” Blake said. “If we get that on the dresses we can’t give them back.”

“Then she should take a shower anyway.”

“Dinner will probably be ready soon.” Emerald poured more lemonade into her glass. “We’ll do it when we’re all together, okay?”

Weiss lowered her voice. “Is she self-conscious about gaining weight?”

“She didn’t gain weight,” Mercury said quickly, probably the worst lie he had ever told.

“Not saying she did, but she’s wearing this loose shirt today and usually she hates clothes like that, I thought maybe she’s having another moment of low body confidence.”

“Maybe it’s just more comfortable with the hot weather,” Blake said. “I don’t think she had gained weight too.”

Effie came running back into the living room and climbing on the couch between Mercury and Blake, her hands red from scrubbing them. “We repaired Qrow’s car. Yang said he never could have done that on his own.”

“Absolutely.” Blake filled another glass with lemonade and gave it to Effie.

“Effie is going to be a real car expert.” Yang was wearing her hair in a messy ponytail. She sat down on Mercury’s lap and he grunted, which earned him a playful pinch in the ribs from her. He wrapped his arms around her. “She’ll be able to repair them before she’s allowed to drive them.”

Effie leaned against Blake and she wrapped her arm around her. “I want to drive a bike like Yang.”

“Yeah, we’ll talk about that again when you’re older,” Mercury said.

“I’ll go ask Taiyang how long it will take until dinner is ready,” Weiss said and got up. “Maybe we’ll still have time to try on the dresses.”

Yang gave Blake a worried look. “She really wants to do that today?” she whispered when Weiss had left the room. “I can’t wear the dresses we picked, it’s way too tight.”

“Just tell her it doesn’t fit,” Blake said.

“What if she finds out?”

“Finds out what?” Effie asked.

“Nothing,” Yang said quickly. Wrong answer, Mercury could tell that by the way Effie looked at her. She was absolutely not buying it.

“Then just tell her,” Emerald said.

“I can’t tell her before…” She told Effie. Yang sighed. “Shit.”

“Do you think I’m too young to know what you’re talking about?”

“No, Effie.” Yang sighed. “You’re the first I’m going to tell, okay?”

“But Blake already knows, so I’m not the first anymore.”

“Okay, but… the next person I’m going to tell,” Yang said. Mercury groaned and leaned his head against her back.

“Then you can tell me now.”

“Tell her what?” Ruby came into the living room, shortly followed by Weiss. She dropped on the armrest of the couch next to Yang.

“Nothing,” Yang said.

“If it’s nothing then what do you want to tell me?” Effie asked.

“A secret,” Mercury said. “Ruby and Weiss can’t know.”

“Now I’m curious,” Ruby said. “I mean it’s not like you’re pregnant, right?”

The silence was telling. Mercury let out a groan and buried his face in Yang’s back to escape the situation. Maybe this was the true betrayal, that neither Emerald nor Blake nor Yang came up with a response quick enough.

“Oh my god!” Weiss gasped. Mercury looked up and she was already running up to Yang, hugging her tightly and almost Merc as well, but he leaned back fast enough. “Congratulations!”

“Congratulations?” Taiyang asked behind them. _Oh no_. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’m becoming an aunt!” Ruby wrapped her arms around both Yang and Weiss, and Mercury was trapped, feeling Taiyang’s gaze on him without any chance to escape. He looked at Emerald and she formed a silent _I’m sorry_.

“I thought you’re my aunt,” Effie said.

Ruby got up and kneeled down in front of Effie to hug her. “Of course I am, but now I’m gonna be a double aunt.”

“Maybe we should go outside before dinner and see what Zwei is up to,” Mercury said. Ruby caught the hint and picked Effie up, Yang getting up to let Mercury follow them. He avoided looking at Taiyang.

They sat down on the porch, Effie between him and Ruby. “So Yang is having a baby?” Effie asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You’ll have a little sibling.” Ruby ruffled her hair. “That’s exciting.”  

“Half-sibling”, Effie mumbled.

“Yang is my half-sister too. It never made a difference.”

“You wanted me and Yang to get married so she’d be your stepmom,” Mercury said. “Her being the mum of your brother or sister is even better than that. You can’t get divorced from a child.”

Ruby wrapped her arm around Effie’s shoulders. “You don’t look too happy about the news. What’s the matter?”

Effie shrugged. “What if she likes the baby more than me?”

“No, she won’t.” Ruby wrapped her arms around her and kissed her forehead. “You know, Qrow is Raven’s brother, Yang’s uncle. He’s not actually related to me, but he never treated me any different. My mum didn’t treat Yang any different. Blake already adores you. I definitely won’t like the baby more than you.”

“You’ll like having a brother or sister when you’re older,” Mercury said. “Look at me, I’m a single child and had to make Emerald stick around so I wouldn’t be too alone.”

“You know what?” Ruby brushed some strands of hair out of her face. “The baby is definitely not going to like anyone more than you. I know that from experience. Do you want to go back inside now? I bet everyone is super excited that you’re going to be a big sister.”

“You promise the baby will like me?” Effie asked.

“If not we’ll give it back,” Mercury said. “You were here first.”

“No one is going to give anyone back.” Ruby said. “But yes, I promise.”

Effie looked at Ruby and then got up. “Okay, let’s go back inside.”

Yang was sitting on the couch again, surrounded by everyone else, including Qrow. Mercury avoided to look at him and Taiyang, sitting down a bit aside at the dinner table. When Effie got inside Yang stretched out her arms for her. “Hey, Kitty. Everyone wants to congratulate you.” She pulled Effie on her lap when she came closer, wrapping her arms around her.

“Are you excited to be a big sister?” Blake asked. “I hope Merc can deal with being Yang’s third favourite person in the house from now on.”

“Sometimes I wish I had been older when Ruby was born,” Yang said, leaning her chin on Effie’s shoulder. “I can barely remember the times when she was a baby. You’re lucky you’re old enough to watch the baby be cute and squishy.”

“Yang was still so small, but still so excited to be a big sister.” Taiyang leaned back in his armchair. “She loved Ruby dearly.”

“I’m excited to go baby shopping,” Weiss said. “We can pick toys and clothes together, Effie.”

Being the centre of attention again seemed to make Effie feel much better about the news. She was smiling again, and in some way that made Mercury feel less anxious too. At least a bit.

“Come on, Merc.” Emerald got up. “Help me set the table, I’m starving.”

Mercury followed her into the kitchen. “Don’t expect me to say thank you,” he said, and _Thank you_ was what he meant. “How can you be that excited about a human that isn’t even the size of an orange yet?”

“You’re the father. Shouldn’t you be most excited?”

“I’m the one who has to try not to drop it, that is the issue.”

“You’re adorable.” Emerald smirked and nudged him with her elbow. “Already worried.”

“I’m worried about my ass when Yang finds out I dropped the baby, don’t get your hopes up high.” He opened the kitchen cabinet to take out plates, or to throw them at Emerald if needed.

“Well, if you can’t use protection properly you also have to deal with the consequences, and let me mock you as much as I want.”

“Go take the casserole out of the oven and keep your lesbian opinion to yourself.” He turned around and almost ran into Taiyang.

“Congratulations!”  Taiyang said. He put his hands on Mercury’s shoulders and the grin on his face told him to drop the plates and run as fast as he could. “I’m so happy you’ll make me a grandfather. Again.”

This was actually worse than him trying to cut his dick off for sticking it into his daughter. “Thanks,” he said.

“Whenever you need anything just tell me. Becoming a father can be quite frightening at first. Maybe I could give you some –“

“Dad, don’t dad him that much.” Yang took the plates out of Mercury’s hands and gave them to Taiyang. “Come on, Merc, I need your help getting chairs from upstairs.” She pulled him with her and he didn’t even bother to deny he was grateful for that.

“They know you too well,” Mercury said when they went upstairs. “I definitely didn’t want to be anywhere around when you tell your father.”

“This is not how I wanted Effie to find out.” Yang intertwined her fingers with his. “How did she take it?”

“Not that well at first, but I think she’ll be a big fan of the idea in no time. Ruby did a good job explaining why having a sister is not the worst thing in the world.”

“Shit. She’s probably scared we’ll just give her away now that we’re gonna have a child on our own.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll just tell her it’s nothing like that and she’ll be a happy big sister.”

“You’re so clearly a single child.” She sighed and leaned her head against his chest for a moment and he wrapped his arms around her. “I was so nervous about this, I can’t believe everyone knows now.”

“I really hoped we’d have a bit more time too.”

“I’ll make sure dad leaves you alone.”

“Guess I have to manage now.” He kissed her forehead. “Let’s get the chairs and eat, I don’t want to get home too late.”

 

* * *

 

Effie was tired on the way home, resting her head against Blake’s shoulder on the back seat. Yang stopped in front of their house and Effie looked at Blake, waiting for her to hug and kiss her goodbye. “You two should come upstairs with me for a moment,” Blake said instead. “Mercury too if he wants. I have something for you.”

Yang looked at Mercury. He shrugged, then unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car with them. Sometimes she could barely believe how much she had changed ever since she had started dating him.

Effie ran up the stairs, not that tired anymore all of a sudden. She waited by the door until Emerald opened it and Blake smirked at Yang. “It won’t take long. I know it’s late.”

“She’s been waiting for this moment for a while.” Emerald let Effie inside and followed her. “She had it before I even knew you were pregnant.”

“Is it for the baby or for me?” Effie asked.

“Both.” Blake took her shoes off. “I’ll go and get it real quick.”

“I’d offer you a cup of coffee, but you probably want to get home as fast as possible,” Emerald said.

“Yeah, Effie should have been to bed long ago.” Yang ruffled Effie’s hair.

“You always go to bed way later than me too.”

“Found it!” Blake came back to them, holding a bag in her hand. “I kinda wanted to be the first to buy something for the baby.” She kneeled down in front of Effie. “It’s for both of you.”

Effie reached into the bag. She pulled out two plushies and only after a second Yang saw they were black cats. Of course they were. “One is for the baby, one is for you,” Emerald said. “They have different eye colours.”

Effie pressed them both to her chest. “I get the one with the purple eyes,” she said. “But I’ll cuddle them both now until the baby can.”

“That’s so sweet.” Yang gave Blake a big smile. “Thank you.”

“I’m just glad it’s finally out.” Blake gave Effie a hug and kissed her cheek. “Keep good care of them until your little sibling arrives.”

“They look like Dante.” Effie beamed. “I love them.”

“Come on, they’re probably tired too,” Yang said. “Let’s go home.”

Effie was still pressing the plushies close to her chest when they got back to their car. She fell asleep on the short ride home, but when Mercury picked her up to carry her upstairs she woke up, rubbing her eyes and leaning her head against his shoulder. Yang took the plushies and followed them upstairs. One with purple eyes, the other one’s yellow. So soft and adorable it made her heart melt.

“Put your pyjamas on, I’ll come say goodnight in a minute”, Yang said when she opened the door to their apartment. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

“I’m too tired,” Effie mumbled, but Mercury carried her into the bathroom anyway.

Yang was wearing her own pyjamas already when she went into Effie’s room. She was lying in bed, but was still awake. Effie had had trouble falling asleep when she had moved in with Mercury, and even though it had gotten better since it still wasn’t good, and the kidnapping had made it much worse again. Yang wasn’t sure if what she did was actually helping, but it at least felt like she was doing something.

They snuggled up beneath the blanket. Dante got up from his place at the foot end of the bed and Yang was too tired to stop him from sitting down on her stomach, purring and stomping. Effie hugged the cat plushies and leaned her head against her. Yang wrapped her arms around her. “You look a bit too tired to read a book”, she said.

“I’m not tired,” Effie mumbled, eyes half closed. “When you have the baby, do we have to share a room?”

“No, you’ll keep your room. The baby will sleep in our bedroom at first, and then probably get the guest room.” She stroked the hair out of Effie’s face.

“Maybe the baby can visit me in my room sometimes. But it’s an exception.”

Yang smirked. “Sure. Only an exception.”

“Are you still not asleep?” Mercury was closing the bedroom door behind him and sat down next to Yang on the bed. “Can you tell that big hairball I want my girlfriend back?”

Yang laughed. Dante didn’t move, still purring as if it was to spite him. “Move him if you want.”

“No, we can all cuddle together”, Effie said. “Don’t throw him out of the bed.”

Mercury lied down next to Yang, resting his head on her chest. “I just hope he won’t scratch me.”

“Now that you will have a baby, are you getting married?”

Mercury and Yang exchanged a long look. “Uh, well…” Yang started. “We’re not quite… into that.”

“What do you mean? Are you not a real family?”

“We are. But…”

“Yang and I can’t get married,” Mercury said. “Yang promised Ruby not to get married before she does so she wouldn’t feel bad about being single, so we have to wait for her to find someone. Is Yang going to read us a bedtime story now? The one with the apple princess?”

“Strawberry princess. He always reads the stories wrong and makes things up!” Effie pouted.

“He’s better with comics,” Yang said. “But those aren’t good bedtime stories.”

“They are fantastic bedtime stories. I read them every night under my blanket every night. I could never fall asleep when I had no batteries for my flashlights.”

His words left a bitter taste in her mouth. Anything about his childhood did. “Effie and I love the strawberry princess. Don’t we?” She looked at her, only then she noticed Effie had already fallen asleep.

“I don’t have enough love to give to waste it on random princesses”, he said. “There are too many greedy women who want some already.”

Yang smiled softly. “Not sorry.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised I skipped a chapter. So I've added a chapter between the last chapter and the one before that. You might want to reread chapter 20, chapter 21 (formerly known as chapter 20) is one I've already posted, and this one is new as well.

It felt like time was flying by. One second he was watching Yang, sitting on the balcony with Effie, doing her homework and eating watermelon, the next it was too cold to leave the house without a jacket; something that confronted her with the harsh truth of not fitting into any of her coats anymore. Or most of her clothes in general. Making her buy maternity clothes was a fight neither he nor his wardrobe could afford to lose. Eventually she gave in.

“Weiss, I really couldn’t care less about baby clothes right now.” Yang sat on the living room floor, surrounded by seating plans and napkin samples. “We have a wedding to plan.”

“What are you going to do if you’re too busy planning the wedding to buy anything in time? Dress the child in towels and your bridesmaid dress?” Weiss turned around her laptop. “Mercury, what do you say about this jacket?”

“I don’t care, ask Effie.” He looked back at his phone.

“You seriously don’t care what your child is going to wear?”

“Yang already told me I can’t buy anything black or grey, so no, I don’t care. I’ll hate it anyway.”

“Just help me with the wine glasses, Weiss, I’ve got them nailed down to three different sets.” Yang leaned back against the armchair Mercury sat in. Though she wore one of Mercury’s hoodies, the bump showed anyway. “Merc, did you get the Christmas presents?”

“Christmas presents?”

“I’ve made you a list.” She groaned. “Don’t tell me you forgot. I don’t want to have to run through crowded stores three days before Christmas for last minute presents.”

“It was a joke, don’t worry. I’ve ordered them online.” It was a month until Christmas. They’d still arrive on time if he ordered them tonight. He ran his hand through her hair without looking up from his phone. “Try not to get stressed enough to have that baby right now, I promised to watch Star Wars with Effie tonight.”

“You’re not gonna show her the prequels. I will stop you. If you want to watch Star Wars with her, then only watch the real movies.”

“I’ll order some baby clothes for you,” Weiss said. “You can send them back, but I can’t stand watching you not having a single baby item any longer.”

“Ruby bought some socks with dogs on them. Effie didn’t like them.” Yang put some sheets of paper on Mercury’s lap when she failed to find another space to put them on the floor around her. “I like dogs.”

“I hate all animals,” Mercury said.

“I think you really need a baby bed before the baby arrives.” Weiss closed her laptop. “Okay, are you done with the table cloths?”

The living room door opened. Effie carried a very miserable Dante in her arms, dropping him on one of Yang’s stacks of papers where he sat down and licked his butt. “It’s Dante’s birthday today,” Effie said. “We need to celebrate.”

“Oh no, please get the cat away from that.” Yang sat up. “It’s chaotic enough already.”

“It’s his birthday,” Effie said again. Her lip was trembling.

“Okay, how about we make him a cake?” Mercury got up, dropping the papers Yang had put on his lap on the floor which earned him an angry glare from her.

“He can’t eat cake,” Weiss said.

“Effie can eat it for him.” He waited until Effie had picked Dante up again and went through the door before he closed it behind her and followed her to the kitchen.

“They can’t be that busy on his birthday,” Effie said. She dropped Dante on the floor again who just let it happen and sniffed around his bowl in hope it was dinner time already. “What if he feels left out?”

“Yang spends so much time with this wedding she barely has time for me either.” He picked Effie up so she could sit on the kitchen counter. “Weddings aren’t any fun.”

“On how many weddings have you been to?”

“None. But unless you get married one day, no one can force me to attend one ever again.”

“I’ve never been to a wedding. Blake said there’ll be a giant cake and we’ll have lots of fun, but Yang is just busy all the time. She doesn’t even have time to celebrate Dante’s birthday.”

“Maybe we should make her take a break.” He opened the freezer and took out a plastic box with Weiss’ neat handwriting on it. “We still got leftover cake from your birthday, do you think Yang will notice if we put it in the microwave?”

“Can you still eat that?”

“Sure, it was frozen.” He opened the box. “Maybe we’ll put some chocolate on top of it.”

“Can I give Dante some cheese?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell Yang.”

He put the cake into the microwave and spent some time trying to figure out the right setting so he wouldn’t burn it. When he turned around Effie was sitting on the floor, Dante on her lap and eating cheese out of her hand. He kneeled down next to them, looking at them until she looked up. “I got Dante when mummy started to be away at night. I woke up from nightmares and couldn’t find her and when she came home I was so scared, I couldn’t stop crying. She said Dante was her magic cat and when he was around she could always see me.” 

If there was one thing he deeply regretted it was getting the wrong woman pregnant. With Yang he knew she’d be an amazing mum, but as much as Cinder had tried, it hurt him more than he liked to admit how much she had screwed her up. “He’s… a very catly cat.”

“Do you want to hold him?”

“I think he’s much happier with you.”

“Don’t worry, he likes you. You have to hold him like that.” She took his hands to help him and he gave in. Contrary to his expectations he didn’t scratch him. His fur was soft. At least he didn’t smell as bad as Zwei. Mercury held Dante to his chest and he was sure they were both equally unhappy about the situation, but no matter how much he didn’t want to hold him, Dante made Effie happy. He made the loss of her mother easier for her. And just for that he couldn’t hate him. He looked at him and maybe the cat understood. But it was just a cat after all.

“Here you are.” Yang opened the fridge, taking out a box of pineapple she had cut yesterday after having a sudden craving and sending Mercury to the store. Every time she ate pineapple she complained about her tongue hurting for hours afterwards, but it never stopped her.

“We decided to make microwave cake,” Effie said. “For Dante’s birthday.”

“I hope he likes it.” Yang sat down next to them, stroking Dante behind his ears until he started to purr. “Hey, Effie, Weiss really wants to order some baby stuff online. Do you want to help her with that?”

Effie beamed. “I love picking baby stuff.” 

“She’s waiting in the living room.”

Mercury waited until Effie had left the kitchen before he let Dante go. He didn’t run away, just sat down on the kitchen floor and licked his fur. “She needs a bit more attention,” Mercury said.

“I’m a terrible stepmom.” Yang wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning her head against his shoulder. The box of pineapple was cold against his neck and he took it out of her hands. “I already fail to equally divide my attention between her and that stupid wedding.”

“What about me? I want attention too.”

“You’re not important.”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “She adores you.”

“Yeah, but should she?”

“You can’t be worse than Cinder. She bought her a cat so she wouldn’t freak out when she left her alone for the night. Even for me that aren’t high stakes. Go cuddle her before you’re too fat for her to sit on your lap.”

“I should have ditched you long ago.” She got up, taking the box with pineapples from her. “Be careful. This whale can become very, very angry.”

“This whale is really, really into my hot body.”

She flipped him off, but he could see she was trying not to smirk. “Make sure to bring me a piece of that cake you’re heating up in the microwave before I eat you.”


	23. Chapter 23

~~~~“It’s just a birthday party.” Yang adjusted the collar of his shirt even though it hadn’t looked bad to begin with. “You look like I’m dragging you to a twelve hour talk about the sex life of stonefish.”

“At least that has sex in it.”

She ran her fingers over his collarbones, his neck, his jaw. “Play along and you might feel like a stonefish tonight.”

“This isn’t half as seductive as you might think it is.”

She got on the tip of her toes to kiss him. “You know it is. I look stunning in that dress. Come on, we gotta go.”

She had to admit, it was a bit more than just a birthday party. Effie clung to Yang’s hand when they stepped into the great hall. The celebration took place in a fancy hotel that Yang usually hadn’t set a foot in. She chuckled when she saw the white tablecloths and a waitress in a white blouse offered them drinks. Maybe this was just Taiyang’s way to get revenge for something Qrow had done way back.

Her shiny golden dress didn’t hide anything and the waitress with the champagne completely ignored her. Yang took a glass of orange juice for Effie from another waiter and nothing for herself because she hated orange juice and it was the only non-alcoholic option. Mercury buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans, maybe he was the only person who hated this more than Qrow right now.

“No one is wearing a police uniform,” Effie said. She sounded disappointed.

“This is a party. Also most of the people here are high ranking police officers, they don’t have to wear uniforms anymore.”

Effie sipped on her orange juice. She looked adorable in her black dress, black to match Blake. It was cute how much she adored her. “Can we eat dinner now?”

“Soon. Let’s look for our seats first.”

“I wouldn’t mind if we sat as far away from Qrow as possible,” Mercury mumbled.

“We’re family.” Yang nudged him with her elbow. “Not gonna happen.”

“There’s Roman!” Effie almost spilled her orange juice when she ran off.

“Probably just someone with red hair,” Yang said and handed Mercury her glass. “Go find our seats, I’ll go get her.”

Effie wasn’t hard to find, and it was in fact Roman who she had spotted. He seemed overdressed, like usual, and that meant something considering the occasion. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” Yang said. “You know my uncle?”

“I worked with him on a rather complicated case last year.” He rested his hand on Effie’s shoulder as if it was nothing. It was weird to see how close they were, something she usually liked to forget. “I’m not going to miss such a luscious dinner.”

“Yang said there will be a fireworks,” Effie said. “You have to stay for the fireworks. Will you stay for the fireworks?”

“Of course I will.” He sipped on his champagne. “You’re not drinking?”

“Haha. I wish I could.” Yang looked at Effie. “Do you want to stay with Roman or do you want to join the others with me?”

Effie looked back and forth between them. “We can still watch the fireworks together,” Roman said. “I’m only sitting with boring people anyway.”

“Okay, but promise not to just leave.”

“Promised. Now go find your dad before he gets too bored here.” Roman smirked at her.

“Have fun,” Yang said when Effie took her hand. She wasn’t even sure why it surprised her how soft he was with her.

It wasn’t easy to immediately understand the seating plan. The family table was long and large, and Yang was glad she had finally found her name on one of the seats, Effie’s and Mercury’s right next to her. She couldn’t see him anywhere, but she didn’t feel like searching for him, so she pulled the heavy chair back for Effie and sat down, reaching for the bottle of water in front of her. It was only then that she saw her.

“Hello,” Raven said. “Nice to see you.” Her dress was red and more feminine than anything she had ever seen on her, but she had only seen her a couple of times in her entire life.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”  Yang tried to shake off the state of shock, before she took the water bottle and slowly poured in water for Effie. “Happy birthday I guess.”

“Qrow’s secretary sent me an invitation. I thought it was better than spending the night home alone with a glass of wine.”

The thought of Raven spending her birthday all on her own made Yang feel weird in a way she couldn’t quite describe. She didn’t know anything about the way she lived. But it wasn’t her fault after all. “Well, Qrow definitely would have preferred that.”

“Definitely. Well, his own fault if he lets his secretary plan the whole thing.” Raven sipped on her glass. Red wine, something Yang had never liked. “How are you?”

Yang wasn’t sure whether she meant how she was or her pregnancy specifically. “Fine,” she said, as a sort of compromise. “Everything is completely fine.”

“Who are you?” Effie asked bluntly.

“She’s my mother,” Yang said, hoping that would make Effie drop the topic.

“You said you don’t talk to each other.”

Yang looked down at her fingers. “We didn’t talk to each other for a long time.”

“But now you do?”

“Well, we…”

“The seating plan officially is a joke.”

Yang looked up. It was Qrow who had saved her, sitting down next to his sister and reaching for the water bottle. Raven just smirked at him. “At least this time you can’t make me responsible for that.”

“With all the money Ozpin threw into this party, you could at least expect the waiters to offer us something else to drink than water. I bet Effie isn’t too happy about it either, huh?”

“I’d like to have a lemonade,” Effie said. “Or a coke.”

“It’s too late for coke, Kitty,” Yang said. “We’ll stick to lemonade tonight, okay?”

The others soon joined. Mercury looked a bit worried when he saw Raven, but Yang turned away to make it clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. Everyone seemed a bit taken aback by Raven’s presence and Yang barely managed to look at Ruby. Blake and Emerald sat a bit further away with Weiss and Ilia, and Yang could see that Effie didn’t like that, despite feeling honoured to sit at the family table, which sounded important enough to impress her.

At least they waited with the speeches until the starters had been served. Effie eyed the cold herring on her plate with little enthusiasm and Yang and Mercury both picked the croutons out of their salad to get her through Ozpin’s praise of Qrow both as a police officer and a friend.

It was weird how fast they adapted to Raven being there, and how fast she was left out of conversations. Yang couldn’t tell if it was because of them or because of her, but it drew Yang away from it as well. She kept staring at the glass of wine Raven hadn’t touched yet and when the main course was served she already felt sick.

“This is boring,” Effie mumbled next to her.

Yang looked up. “Yeah, I know,” she whispered back.

“Who’s that man?”

“Ozpin? He’s Qrow’s and dad’s boss. He talks a lot, though.”

“Will the wedding be that boring, too?”

“No. Surely not. We’ll have music and games and you won’t have to sit with boring people, I promise.”

Dessert was served in the form of a big cake, complete with a big _50_ on it and sparklers, and Yang could see that Qrow absolutely utterly hated every part about it. At least people started to get up now, Effie running off to say hello to Blake and Emerald. Yang sat down on her chair, right next to Mercury, which at least created some distance between her and Raven.

“You don’t want cake?” Mercury asked.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “No. I think I feel sick.”

“Is it the food, the creature you grow in your womb, or your mother being here?” he whispered.

She took a sip from his coke. “All of it.”

“Well, you’re definitely not the only one suffering here.”

“Roman is here. Effie was super excited.”

“Yeah, I saw him sitting next to Weiss’ sister.”

“Never thought they’d get along.” Yang sighed and pecked his cheek. “I’ll go and ask Effie if she wants cake.”

Effie was already sharing a big piece of cake with Blake, sitting on her lap and looking as happy as she could get. Yang sat down with them for a while, trying to avoid any topic that could possibly make her feel worse. It felt like the night was dragging on and on and on. Yang ignored that Qrow let Effie sip on his coke and drank everything Blake handed her, grape juice and lemonade, just so she would stop being worried about her being dehydrated or hypoglycaemic. When they watched the fireworks outside, she leaned against Mercury, less because it was so romantic, and more because she was horribly tired and cold. Roman took Effie on his shoulders, at least she was having fun.

They left without seeing Raven again. Maybe that was the worst part about her, that she made Yang feel bad when she was seeing her, and made her feel bad when she wasn’t, as if she had missed her last chance, the last chance to whatever.

“I liked the fireworks,” Effie said when they walked upstairs. “But the dinner was boring. I don’t like fish.”

“You do like fish fingers,” Yang said.

Mercury unlocked the apartment door. “I didn’t eat the fish either,” he said. “Now hurry, it’s way past your bedtime.”

“I hope Dante didn’t miss me.” Effie took her shoes off and disappeared into the apartment.

“I hope she can fall asleep.” Mercury put Effie’s shoes into the shoe rack next to his own.

Yang leaned against the doorframe. “Was it me or did –“

The scream made her flinch. She didn’t even think before she turned around and followed it to the living room. Her heart was pounding fast and for a moment she didn’t even understand what she was seeing right in front of her.

The door to the balcony was open, glass scattered over the floor. Effie was kneeling down next to something dark on the floor, and only when she stepped closer Yang realised it was Dante. He wasn’t moving, and something poked out of his head. “The glass,” Yang managed to say after a moment. “Effie, don’t move!”

Mercury was next to Effie with only a couple of steps, the glass scrunching beneath his metal feet. He picked Effie up, the expression on his face when he carried her out of the room stoic. “Call your uncle,” he said. It wasn’t until now that the reality of what had happened sunk in.

Someone had been in their apartment. Someone had broken in and killed Effie’s cat.

“Fuck.”


	24. Chapter 24

Their apartment was full of people. Again. It reminded Yang way too much of the last time. She was sitting on the bathroom floor, trying to calm herself down. Her throat was sore from throwing up and trying not to cry, and she couldn’t get the pictures out of her head. Dante, dead, with a screwdriver rammed through his eye. Effie sobbing uncontrollably in Mercury’s arms while Taiyang tried to check if she had any broken glass in her feet.

Yang got up and forced herself to drink a glass of water. She looked horrible, but right now she couldn’t even care enough about covering that up. She took a deep breath and left the bathroom.

“I’m not leaving,” Qrow said, almost yelled.

“Then stay and watch. Maybe you’ll learn something.” Raven was wearing a black blazer over her red dress. All awkwardness from the party was gone. Right now she was just the agent who had fought hard for her position and wouldn’t start to back down now.

“You’re not responsible for this.”

“She’s my daughter, so yes, I am responsible. I won’t sit and watch while your officers screw this up.” Raven looked at Yang for a brief second before she whispered something to a woman with short hair and leather jacket. “Kitchen,” Raven said to Yang, her voice as cold as towards Qrow earlier.

A young police officer left the kitchen as soon as they entered it and Raven closed the door behind them. “Sit down,” Raven said, opening the fridge.

Yang did as she was told, if anything just because her knees felt weak. “Merc called my friend to pick us up,” she said. “Do you still need us here?”

“No, not today. You should try to get some sleep.”

She buried her face in her hands, taking slow and steady breaths. “Do you have any ideas who it was?”

“No, not yet.” She heard Raven open cupboards, the tab running. “Qrow will have his men around, but I’ll send some of my people as well. I’m not taking any risks anymore. No one is going to get anywhere near you without me knowing about it.”

“I just want it to be over.”

She looked up when Raven came closer. She put a plate with a sandwich and a glass of water on the table in front of her. “Eat,” she said. “This is too much stress for you right now anyway.”

It was such a weirdly motherly gesture that for a moment, Yang didn’t even know how to respond, or how to look at her. She took a bite because it spared her from saying anything. It wasn’t a good sandwich, just mayonnaise and cheese, but she wanted to believe it would make her feel better.

“The cat died a couple of hours ago,” Raven said, sitting down at the table with her. “I was pretty sure Torchwick had something to do with it, but he was at the party. Maybe he has someone who helps him.”

“He would never do that to Effie.” Yang looked at her. “He kept that cat in his bathroom for weeks just because she loves it so much. He might kidnap her to be with her, I don’t know him well enough to rule that out, but he definitely won’t kill her cat. He knows how much that would upset her.”

“Someone killed that cat and then rammed a screwdriver into its eye. This is something personal.”

“Guess I wasn’t scared enough already.”

“You need to realise how serious the situation is.”

“I know it is serious.” She looked down. She didn’t want to snap at her, but right now she also really just wanted to yell at someone. “I realised it was serious when Effie disappeared.”

“I won’t let this happen again.”

“I just want it to be over,” Yang said again. She looked down at her plate. “I need to sleep.”

“Eat your sandwich. I need to tell Vernal to send someone to your friend’s place as well.” She got up. “And drink some water. Dehydration is the last thing you need right now.”

Many things were the last thing she needed right now, but she didn’t even know how to think right now. She just nodded and took another bite of the sandwich. Raven left the kitchen and Yang was alone again, only left with her thoughts and her fear.

“Yang?”

She looked up. When she saw Blake she almost wanted to cry. She got up and let Blake pull her into her arms, burying her face in her hair. “Dante is dead,” she whispered. “Someone killed that stupid cat.”

“I know.” Blake hugged her tightly. “Mercury told me on the phone that someone broke in. Are you alright?”

“I don’t know. Someone broke into my home, I just want to go to bed or choke whoever did that personally. Effie is a mess.”

“I’m sure they’ll find him,” Blake said. “You need some rest. We’ll pack some clothes and then I’ll take you and Effie home with me.”

“I don’t want to leave Merc alone, he’s not dealing with it well.”

“Emmy is with me. She’ll stay with him.” Blake looked at her. “You and Effie need to sleep, and there is no one who knows him better than her. He’s in good hands, okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” It still felt wrong to leave him alone like that. Partly because of him, partly because for some reason that idiot had got her to a point where she wanted the comfort he couldn’t give her right now. “Let’s go and pack some things.”

They were in the bedroom. Mercury was sitting on the bed, holding her close, but something about him seemed off. His posture was stiff, as if someone had moved him into this position, not like he was actually trying to comfort his daughter. His gaze was quick, concentrated and aware, eyes lingering on her without any sign of concern. Only caution. Yang looked at him and didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll get some clothes for Effie,” Blake said behind her. “Do you need me here?”

Yang shook her head. “It’s fine, thank you.” She looked at Mercury for another second, but then quickly turned around to pull some clothes out of the cupboard without even really looking at them.

“What’s your mum doing here?” Mercury asked all of a sudden. Yang almost flinched.

“I’m her daughter, so the thinks she’s responsible.” Yang turned around. “Are you sure you wanna stay here?”

He nodded. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He looked away and she followed his gaze. Only then she saw Emerald, leaning against the doorframe.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” Emerald said. “I can go and –“

“No, it’s fine.” Yang turned around to get a bag from the dark end of the cupboard they rarely ever looked at. She had tried to admit to herself long ago that maybe she would never know Mercury as well as Emerald did, and sometimes she had to realise she wasn’t always the one she needed.

Blake came back and Emerald took the bag out of Yang’s hands. “Come, I’ll take her,” Blake said. Mercury hesitated before he let Blake take Effie, Effie wrapping her tiny arms around her neck. Her eyes were read and swollen. “Okay, come on.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Yang said, and Blake nodded, carrying Effie out of the room. Emerald hesitated for a moment before she followed her.

“It’s not a big deal. Just go already.”

Yang leaned down to kiss him, cupping his face with her hand. He didn’t kiss her back, but he also didn’t push her away. His body felt tensed under her fingers and she wished she knew how to take that pressure away from him. “Promise you’ll at least try to get some sleep, okay?”

“Isn’t it enough that I have Em as a babysitter now?”

“I love you.”

He sighed. “Go already.”

She nodded, giving him one last warm kiss before she broke away. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

The car ride was a blur. Yang panicked for a brief moment because she felt bad for not saying goodbye to her dad, but Blake said she had told him they were about to leave. Effie started to cry when Blake stopped the car and Yang took the bag while Blake carried her inside.

Getting out of her dress and into her pyjamas didn’t make her feel better either. When Yang got into the bedroom Effie was already curled up beneath the blanket, Blake running her hands through her hair to calm her down. Yang lied down next to her and she robbed closer, letting her hug her, her tiny body shaking.

“How are you feeling?” Yang asked. Effie started to cry again, burying her face in Yang’s chest. She pulled her closer, kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know what to say to make her feel better.

“Try to sleep,” Blake said. She moved closer, wrapping her arms both around Effie and Yang. “Effie said she wants to sleep with the lights on.”

“Yeah, sure.” Yang looked at Blake and Blake ran her hand up and down her arm. “Try to sleep, Kitty,” Yang said. “Wake us up if you want to, okay?”

“Why is Merc not here?” Effie whispered, her voice shaking from crying too much.

“He just helps the police officers,” Blake said. “Emmy is with him, and you’ll see him tomorrow. We only went here so we can sleep, they’re really loud.”

 “I need to tell Roman.” Effie sounded like she was about to cry again.

“I’ll call him tomorrow.” Yang stroked Effie’s back to calm her down. “Try to sleep now, okay?”

 

* * *

 

“Mercury, I’m going to break every cup in this house if you attempt to get your hands on a cup of coffee again.” Emerald leaned against the bedroom door. “You should try to sleep.”

“Fuck off, Em.” He leaned against the headboard and refused to look at her. Most police officers had left already, but sleep was the last thing he needed right now. “Don’t you have a girlfriend to take care of?”

“You’re annoying.” She sat down next to him and sighed. “Someone has rammed a screwdriver through Dante’s eye.”

“Yes.”

“Could it…”

“I don’t know.” He had honestly asked himself the same question over and over again, but everything it had done was driving him insane. He felt like punching something, but paralysed at the same time. His muscles were tensed to the point where everything hurt. “I don’t want to sleep right now.”

“That won’t make anything better.”

“Nothing will make anything better. It just sucks, we’re not safe here, I have no idea how to change that, and either someone rammed a screwdriver through that stupid cat's eye just for fun or –“ He couldn’t even say it, and he hated himself for that.

“You should see a doctor, or at least talk to Blake about it.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone about it.”

She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Okay, have your coffee if you want. But neither I nor Yang are going to leave you alone with that.”

“I know.” He leaned his head back. “You’re both kinda annoying.”

“Look who’s talking.”

He squeezed her hand back.


End file.
